


Pollyanna Grows Up (Dr Chilton and Aunt Polly - A Love Story Continued)

by JonSnowsRaven



Category: Pollyanna Series - Eleanor H. Porter
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-01 07:50:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 46,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10184444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JonSnowsRaven/pseuds/JonSnowsRaven
Summary: This is my non-depressing version of this story by Eleanor H. Porter. I've rewritten parts and added bits here and there. I also changed the setting to follow on from my previous story, based on the BBC version, which sets the story in England. Nothing belongs to me! Most of it is much the same as the original, and I've included a lot of that so it makes sense. I've made changes to dialogue, words etc and made it a happier story than the original, with a bit more focus on Dr Chilton and Aunt Polly and their relationship.





	1. Della Speaks Her Mind

Della Wetherby tripped up the somewhat imposing steps of her sister's Commonwealth Avenue home and pressed an energetic finger against the electric-bell button. From the tip of her wing-trimmed hat to the toe of her low-heeled shoe she radiated health, capability, and alert decision. Even her voice, as she greeted the maid that opened the door, vibrated with the joy of living.

"Good morning, Mary. Is my sister in?"

"Y-yes, ma'am, Mrs. Carew is in," hesitated the girl; "but—she gave orders she'd see no one."

"Did she? Well, I'm no one," smiled Miss Wetherby, "so she'll see me. Don't worry—I'll take the blame," she nodded, in answer to the frightened remonstrance in the girl's eyes. "Where is she—in her sitting-room?"

"Y-yes, ma'am; but—that is, she said—" Miss Wetherby, however, was already halfway up the broad stairway; and, with a despairing backward glance, the maid turned away.

In the hall above Della Wetherby unhesitatingly walked toward a half-open door, and knocked.

"Well, Mary," answered a "dear-me-what-now" voice. "Haven't I—Oh, Della!" The voice grew suddenly warm with love and surprise. "You dear girl, where did you come from?"

"Yes, it's Della," smiled that young woman, blithely, already halfway across the room. "I've come from an over-Sunday at the beach with two of the other nurses, and I'm on my way back to the Sanatorium now. That is, I'm here now, but I sha'n't be long. I stepped in for—this," she finished, giving the owner of the "dear-me-what-now" voice a hearty kiss.

Mrs. Carew frowned and drew back a little coldly. The slight touch of joy and animation that had come into her face fled, leaving only a dispirited fretfulness that was plainly very much at home there.

"Oh, of course! I might have known," she said. "You never stay—here."

"Here!" Della Wetherby laughed merrily, and threw up her hands; then, abruptly, her voice and manner changed. She regarded her sister with grave, tender eyes. "Ruth, dear, I couldn't—I just couldn't live in this house. You know I couldn't," she finished gently.

Mrs. Carew stirred irritably.

"I'm sure I don't see why not," she fenced.

Della Wetherby shook her head.

"Yes, you do, dear. You know I'm entirely out of sympathy with it all: the gloom, the lack of aim, the insistence on misery and bitterness."

"But I AM miserable and bitter."

"You ought not to be."

"Why not? What have I to make me otherwise?"

Della Wetherby gave an impatient gesture.

"Ruth, look here," she challenged. "You're thirty-three years old. You have good health—or would have, if you treated yourself properly—and you certainly have an abundance of time and a superabundance of money. Surely anybody would say you ought to find SOMETHING to do this glorious morning besides sitting moped up in this tomb-like house with instructions to the maid that you'll see no one."

"But I don't WANT to see anybody."

"Then I'd MAKE myself want to."

Mrs. Carew sighed wearily and turned away her head.

"Oh, Della, why won't you ever understand? I'm not like you. I can't—forget."

A swift pain crossed the younger woman's face.

"You mean—Jamie, I suppose. I don't forget—that, dear. I couldn't, of course. But moping won't help us—find him."

"As if I hadn't TRIED to find him, for eight long years—and by something besides moping," flashed Mrs. Carew, indignantly, with a sob in her voice.

"Of course you have, dear," soothed the other, quickly; "and we shall keep on hunting, both of us, till we do find him—or die. But THIS sort of thing doesn't help."

"But I don't want to do—anything else," murmured Ruth Carew, drearily.

For a moment there was silence. The younger woman sat regarding her sister with troubled, disapproving eyes.

"Ruth," she said, at last, with a touch of exasperation, "forgive me, but—are you always going to be like this? You're widowed, I'll admit; but your married life lasted only a year, and your husband was much older than yourself. You were little more than a child at the time, and that one short year can't seem much more than a dream now. Surely that ought not to embitter your whole life!"

"No, oh, no," murmured Mrs. Carew, still drearily.

"Then ARE you going to be always like this?"

"Well, of course, if I could find Jamie—"

"Yes, yes, I know; but, Ruth, dear, isn't there anything in the world but Jamie—to make you ANY happy?"

"There doesn't seem to be, that I can think of," sighed Mrs. Carew, indifferently.

"Ruth!" ejaculated her sister, stung into something very like anger. Then suddenly she laughed. "Oh, Ruth, Ruth, I'd like to give you a dose of Pollyanna. I don't know any one who needs it more!"

Mrs. Carew stiffened a little.

"Well, what pollyanna may be I don't know, but whatever it is, I don't want it," she retorted sharply, nettled in her turn. "This isn't your beloved Sanatorium, and I'm not your patient to be dosed and bossed, please remember."

Della Wetherby's eyes danced, but her lips remained unsmiling.

"Pollyanna isn't a medicine, my dear," she said demurely, "—though I have heard some people call her a tonic. Pollyanna is a little girl."

"A child? Well, how should I know," retorted the other, still aggrievedly. "You have your 'belladonna,' so I'm sure I don't see why not 'pollyanna.' Besides, you're always recommending something for me to take, and you distinctly said 'dose'—and dose usually means medicine, of a sort."

"Well, Pollyanna IS a medicine—of a sort," smiled Della. "Anyway, the Sanatorium doctors all declare that she's better than any medicine they can give. She's a little girl, Ruth, twelve or thirteen years old, who was at the Sanatorium all last summer and most of the winter. I didn't see her but a month or two, for she left soon after I arrived. But that was long enough for me to come fully under her spell. Besides, the whole Sanatorium is still talking Pollyanna, and playing her game."

"GAME!"

"Yes," nodded Della, with a curious smile. "Her 'glad game.' I'll never forget my first introduction to it. One feature of her treatment was particularly disagreeable and even painful. It came every Tuesday morning, and very soon after my arrival it fell to my lot to give it to her. I was dreading it, for I knew from past experience with other children what to expect: fretfulness and tears, if nothing worse. To my unbounded amazement she greeted me with a smile and said she was glad to see me; and, if you'll believe it, there was never so much as a whimper from her lips through the whole ordeal, though I knew I was hurting her cruelly.

"I fancy I must have said something that showed my surprise, for she explained earnestly: 'Oh, yes, I used to feel that way, too, and I did dread it so, till I happened to think 'twas just like Nancy's wash-days, and I could be gladdest of all on TUESDAYS, 'cause there wouldn't be another one for a whole week.'"

"Why, how extraordinary!" frowned Mrs. Carew, not quite comprehending. "But, I'm sure I don't see any GAME to that."

"No, I didn't, till later. Then she told me. It seems she was the motherless daughter of a poor minister in another part of England and was brought up by the Ladies' Aid Society and missionary barrels. When she was a tiny girl she wanted a doll, and confidently expected it in the next barrel; but there turned out to be nothing but a pair of little crutches.

"The child cried, of course, and it was then that her father taught her the game of hunting for something to be glad about, in everything that happened; and he said she could begin right then by being glad she didn't NEED the crutches. That was the beginning. Pollyanna said it was a lovely game, and she'd been playing it ever since; and that the harder it was to find the glad part, the more fun it was, only when it was too AWFUL hard, like she had found it sometimes."

"Why, how extraordinary!" murmured Mrs. Carew, still not entirely comprehending.

"You'd think so—if you could see the results of that game in the Sanatorium," nodded Della; "and Dr. Ames says he hears she's revolutionized the whole town where she came from, just the same way. He knows Dr. Chilton very well—the man that married Pollyanna's aunt. He's lovely, AND, by the way, I believe their marriage was one of her ministrations. She somehow got them to patch up an old lovers' quarrel between them from years ago. It's really rather sweet.

"You see, two years ago, or more, Pollyanna's father died, and the little girl was sent to this aunt in Beldingsville. In October she was hurt by an automobile, and was told she could never walk again. In April Dr. Chilton sent her to the Sanatorium, and she was there till last March—almost a year. She went home practically cured. You should have seen the child! There was just one cloud to mar her happiness: that she couldn't WALK all the way there. As near as I can gather, the whole town turned out to meet her with brass bands and banners.

"But you can't TELL about Pollyanna. One has to SEE her. And that's why I say I wish you could have a dose of Pollyanna. It would do you a world of good."

Mrs. Carew lifted her chin a little and rolled her eyes.

"Really, indeed, I must say I beg to differ with you," she returned coldly. "I don't care to be 'revolutionized,' and I have no lovers' quarrel to be patched up; and if there is ANYTHING that would be insufferable to me, it would be a little Miss Prim with a long face preaching to me how much I had to be thankful for. I never could bear—" But a ringing laugh interrupted her.

"Oh, Ruth, Ruth," choked her sister, gleefully. "Miss Prim, indeed—POLLYANNA! Oh, oh, if only you could see that child now! But there, I might have known. I SAID one couldn't TELL about Pollyanna. And of course you won't be apt to see her. But—Miss Prim, indeed!" And off she went into another gale of laughter. Almost at once, however, she sobered and gazed at her sister with the old troubled look in her eyes.

"Seriously, dear, can't anything be done?" she pleaded. "You ought not to waste your life like this. Won't you try to get out a little more, and—meet people?"

"Why should I, when I don't want to? I'm tired of—people. You know society always bored me."

"Then why not try some sort of work—charity?"

Mrs. Carew gave an impatient gesture.

"Della, dear, we've been all over this before. I do give money—lots of it, and that's enough. In fact, I'm not sure but it's too much. I don't believe in pauperizing people."

"But if you'd give a little of yourself, dear," ventured Della, gently. "If you could only get interested in something outside of your own life, it would help so much; and—"

"Now, Della, dear," interrupted the elder sister, restively, "I love you, and I love to have you come here; but I simply cannot endure being preached to. It's all very well for you to turn yourself into an angel of mercy and give cups of cold water, and bandage up broken heads, and all that. Perhaps YOU can forget Jamie that way; but I couldn't. It would only make me think of him all the more, wondering if HE had any one to give him water and bandage up his head. Besides, the whole thing would be very distasteful to me—mixing with all sorts and kinds of people like that."

"Did you ever try it?"

"Why, no, of course not!" Mrs. Carew's voice was scornfully indignant.

"Then how can you know—till you do try?" asked the young nurse, rising to her feet a little wearily. "But I must go, dear. I'm to meet the girls at the South Station. Our train goes at twelve-thirty. I'm sorry if I've made you cross with me," she finished, as she kissed her sister good-by.

"I'm not cross with you, Della," sighed Mrs. Carew; "but if you only would understand!"

One minute later Della Wetherby made her way through the silent, gloomy halls, and out to the street. Face, step, and manner were very different from what they had been when she tripped up the steps less than half an hour before. All the alertness, the springiness, the joy of living were gone. For half a block she listlessly dragged one foot after the other. Then, suddenly, she threw back her head and drew a long breath.

"One week in that house would kill me," she shuddered. "I don't believe even Pollyanna herself could so much as make a dent in the gloom! And the only thing she could be glad for there would be that she didn't have to stay."

That this avowed disbelief in Pollyanna's ability to bring about a change for the better in Mrs. Carew's home was not Della Wetherby's real opinion, however, was quickly proved; for no sooner had the nurse reached the Sanatorium than she learned something that sent her flying back over the fifty-mile journey to London the very next day.

So exactly as before did she find circumstances at her sister's home that it seemed almost as if Mrs. Carew had not moved since she left her.

"Ruth," she burst out eagerly, after answering her sister's surprised greeting, "I just HAD to come, and you must, this once, yield to me and let me have my way. Listen! You can have that little Pollyanna here, I think, if you will."

"But I won't," returned Mrs. Carew, with chilly promptness.

Della Wetherby did not seem to have heard. She plunged on excitedly.

"When I got back yesterday I found that Dr. Ames had had a letter from Dr. Chilton - the one who married Pollyanna's aunt, you know. Well, it seems in it he said he was going to Germany for the winter for a special course, but they didn't want to leave Pollyanna here in just a school - so he wasn't sure what they were going to do. Naturally, he wants his wife there with him. Anyhow, Ruth, there's our chance! I want YOU to take Pollyanna this winter, and let her go to some school around here."

"What an absurd idea, Della! As if I wanted a child here to bother with!"

"She won't bother a bit. She must be nearly or quite thirteen by this time, and she's the most capable little thing you ever saw."

"I don't like 'capable' children," retorted Mrs. Carew perversely—but she laughed; and because she did laugh, her sister took sudden courage and redoubled her efforts.

Perhaps it was the suddenness of the appeal, or the novelty of it. Perhaps it was because the story of Pollyanna had somehow touched Ruth Carew's heart. Perhaps it was only her unwillingness to refuse her sister's impassioned plea. Whatever it was that finally turned the scale, when Della Wetherby took her hurried leave half an hour later, she carried with her Ruth Carew's promise to receive Pollyanna into her home.

"But just remember," Mrs. Carew warned her at parting, "just remember that the minute that child begins to preach to me and to tell me to count my mercies, back she goes to you, and you may do what you please with her. I sha'n't keep her!"

"I'll remember—but I'm not worrying any," nodded the younger woman, in farewell. To herself she whispered, as she hurried away from the house: "Half my job is done. Now for the other half—to get Pollyanna to come. But she's just got to come. I'll write that letter so they can't help letting her come!"


	2. Some Old Friends

In Beldingsville that August day, Mrs. Chilton waited until Pollyanna had gone to bed before she spoke to her husband about the letter that had come in the morning mail. For that matter, she would have had to wait, anyway, for crowded office hours, and the doctor’s drive home sometimes left limited time for domestic conferences.

It was almost 8 o'clock, indeed, when Dr Chilton entered their sitting-room. His face lit up at sight of his wife, but at once a perplexed questioning came to his eyes.

”Why Polly, dear, what is it?” he asked concernedly.

His wife smiled at him as she got up from her chair. ”Well, it’s a letter–though I didn’t mean you should find out by just looking at me!”

“Then you mustn’t look so I can,” he smiled, gently taking her into his arms and pressing a warm kiss to her lips by way of greeting, as her arms went around his waist and she kissed him back. ”But what is it?”

Mrs. Chilton hesitated in his arms for a moment, then picked up a letter near her.

“I’ll read it to you,” she said. ”It’s from a Miss Della Wetherby at Dr. Ames’ Sanatorium.”

“All right. Fire away,” directed her husband, throwing himself onto the couch beside his wife’s chair.

But his wife did not at once “fire away.” She first covered her husband’s recumbent figure with a puffy quilt draped on the side of the couch. Mrs. Chilton’s wedding day was but a year behind her. She was forty-two now. It seemed sometimes as if into that one short year of happy wifehood she had tried to crowd all the love and tenderness that had accumulated through fifteen years of lovelessness and loneliness.

Nor did Dr Chilton–who had been forty-five on his wedding day, and who could remember nothing but loneliness and lovelessness–on his part object in the least to his wife’s tender ministrations. A loving and demonstrative man, his love for Aunt Polly was of the kind that was of open, affectionate, frank and warm adoration. He only dreamed, as a lonely bachelor just over one short year ago, that he would become the contented and loving husband of the woman he had always loved. The more outwardly reserved Aunt Polly had grown accustomed to her husband’s affection and lost some of her reserve. Her thoughtful, subtle and often sweetly surprising demonstrations of love revealed a love as deep as that of her husband towards her. A year ago she would never have imagined she could be this happy. She smiled now as she sat beside him on the couch and caressed his cheek as she tenderly pressed her lips to his again, his hand resting on her hip. He closed his eyes and returned her kiss, smiling against her lips. She settled herself and leaned into his arms to read the letter aloud.

“My dear Mrs Chilton,” Della Wetherby had written. ”Just six times I have commenced a letter to you, and torn it up; so now I have decided not to ’commence’ at all, but just to tell you what I want at once. I want Pollyanna. May I have her? ”I met you and your husband last March when you came on to take Pollyanna home, but I presume you don’t remember me. I am asking Dr Ames (who does know me very well) to write your husband, so that you may (I hope) not fear to trust your dear little niece to us. ”I understand that you will go to Germany with your husband but are worried about leaving Pollyanna; and so I am making so bold as to ask you to let us take her. Indeed, I am begging you to let us have her, dear Mrs Chilton. And now let me tell you why.

”My sister, Mrs. Carew, is a lonely, broken-hearted, discontented, unhappy woman. She lives in a world of gloom, into which no sunshine penetrates. Now I believe that if anything on earth can bring the sunshine into her life, it is your niece, Pollyanna. Won’t you let her try? I wish I could tell you what she has done for the Sanatorium here, but nobody could TELL. You would have to see it. I long ago discovered that you can’t TELL about Pollyanna. The minute you try to, she sounds priggish and preachy, and–impossible. Yet you and I know she is anything but that. You just have to bring Pollyanna on to the scene and let her speak for herself. And so I want to take her to my sister–and let her speak for herself. She would attend school, of course, but meanwhile I truly believe she would be healing the wound in my sister’s heart. ”I don’t know how to end this letter. I believe it’s harder than it was to begin it. I’m afraid I don’t want to end it at all. I just want to keep talking and talking, for fear, if I stop, it’ll give you a chance to say no. And so, if you ARE tempted to say that dreadful word, won’t you please consider that–that I’m still talking, and telling you how much we want and need Pollyanna.  
”Hopefully yours,  
”DELLA WETHERBY.”

”There!” said Mrs. Chilton, as she laid the letter down and looked at her husband. ”Did you ever read such a remarkable letter, or hear of a more absurd request?”

”Well, I’m not so sure,” smiled the doctor. ”I don’t think it’s absurd to want Pollyanna.”

”But–but the way she puts it–healing the wound in her sister’s heart, and all that. One would think the child was some sort of–of medicine!”

The doctor laughed outright, and raised his eyebrows.

”Well, I’m not so sure but she is, Polly. I ALWAYS said I wished I could prescribe her and buy her as I would a box of pills; and Charlie Ames says they always made it a point at the Sanatorium to give their patients a dose of Pollyanna as soon as possible after their arrival, during the whole year she was there.”

”’Dose!” objected Mrs. Chilton.

”Then–you don’t think we should let her go?”

”Go?" his wife looked down at him, her eyes wide. "Why, of course not! Do you think I’d let that child go to perfect strangers like that?–and such strangers! Why, Richard, I should expect that that nurse would have her all bottled and labeled with full directions on the outside how to take her, by the time we got back from Germany.”

Again the doctor threw back his head and laughed heartily, but only for a moment. His face changed perceptibly as he reached into his pocket for a letter.

”I heard from Dr. Ames myself, this morning,” he said, with an odd something in his voice that brought a puzzled frown to his wife’s brow. ”Suppose I read you my letter now.”

”Dear Richard,” he began. ”Miss Della Wetherby has asked me to give her and her sister a ’character,’ which I am very glad to do. I have known the Wetherby girls from babyhood. They come from a fine old family, and are thoroughbred gentlewomen. You need not fear on that score. ”There were three sisters, Doris, Ruth, and Della. Doris married a man named John Kent, much against the family’s wishes. Kent came from good stock, but was not much himself, I guess, and was certainly a very eccentric, disagreeable man to deal with. He was bitterly angry at the Wetherbys’ attitude toward him, and there was little communication between the families until the baby came. The Wetherbys worshiped the little boy, James–’Jamie,’ as they called him. Doris, the mother, died when the boy was four years old, and the Wetherbys were making every effort to get the father to give the child entirely up to them, when suddenly Kent disappeared, taking the boy with him. He has never been heard from since, though a world-wide search has been made. ”The loss practically killed old Mr. and Mrs. Wetherby. They both died soon after. Ruth was already married and widowed. Her husband was a man named Carew, very wealthy, and much older than herself. He lived but a year or so after marriage, and left her with a young son who also died within a year. ”From the time little Jamie disappeared, Ruth and Della seemed to have but one object in life, and that was to find him. They have spent money like water, and have all but moved heaven and earth; but without avail. In time Della took up nursing. She is doing splendid work, and has become the cheerful, efficient, sane woman that she was meant to be–though still never forgetting her lost nephew, and never leaving unfollowed any possible clew that might lead to his discovery. ”But with Mrs. Carew it is quite different. After losing her own boy, she seemed to concentrate all her thwarted mother-love on her sister’s son. As you can imagine, she was frantic when he disappeared. That was eight years ago–for her, eight long years of misery, gloom, and bitterness. Everything that money can buy, of course, is at her command; but nothing pleases her, nothing interests her. Della feels that the time has come when she must be gotten out of herself, at all hazards; and Della believes that your wife’s sunny little niece, Pollyanna, possesses the magic key that will unlock the door to a new existence for her. Such being the case, I hope you will see your way clear to granting her request. And may I add that I, too, personally, would appreciate the favour; for Ruth Carew and her sister are very old, dear friends of my wife and myself; and what touches them touches us. As ever yours, CHARLIE.”

The letter finished, there was a long silence, so long a silence that the doctor uttered a quiet, “Well, Polly?”

Still there was silence. The doctor, watching his wife’s face closely, saw that the usually firm lips and chin were trembling. He sat up and leaned over and kissed and stroked her hair, waiting quietly until she spoke.

She leaned into him, his arm still around her. Her husband's warm, steady and protective love always comforted her. “How soon–do you think–they’ll expect her?” she asked at last.

In spite of himself Dr. Chilton gave a slight start. ”You–mean–that you WILL let her go?” he cried.

His wife turned and looked at him with mock indignation.

“Why, Richard, what a question! Do you suppose, after a letter like that, we could do anything BUT let her go? Besides, didn’t Dr. Ames HIMSELF ask us to? Do you think, after what that man has done for Pollyanna, that I’d refuse him ANYTHING–no matter what it was?”

“Oh dear! I hope, now, that the doctor won’t take it into his head to ask for–for YOU, my love,” murmured the husband-of-a-year, glancing at Aunt Polly with a whimsical smile and raised eyebrows, kissing softly beside her lips. His wife’s face relaxed and she gave a rueful laugh. “I don't think he’d dare,” she smiled, reaching for his hand and leaning over, kissing him firmly on the mouth.

“Well,” she said when they broke apart, “write Dr. Ames that we’ll send Pollyanna; and ask him to tell Miss Wetherby to give us full instructions. It must be sometime before the tenth of next month, of course, for we sail then; and I want to see her properly established before we do.”

“When will you tell Pollyanna?”

“To-morrow, probably.”

“What will you tell her?”

His wife pursed her lips in thought. “I don’t know–exactly; but not any more than I can help, certainly. Whatever happens, Richard, we don’t want to spoil Pollyanna; and no child could help being spoiled if she once got it into her head that she was a sort of–of–”

”Of medicine bottle with a label of full instructions for taking?” interpolated the doctor, with a smile.

”Yes,” smiled Mrs. Chilton, with a playful roll of her eyes. ”It’s her unconsciousness that saves the whole thing. YOU know that, my love.”

”Yes, I do,” nodded her husband.

”She knows, of course, that you and I, and half the town are playing the game with her, and that we–we are wonderfully happier because we ARE playing it.” Mrs. Chilton’s voice shook a little, then went on more steadily as her husband pressed her hand and pulled her closer. “But if, consciously, she should begin to be anything but her own natural, sunny, happy little self, playing the game that her father taught her, she would be–just what that nurse said she sounded like–’impossible.’ So, whatever I tell her, I sha’n’t tell her that she’s going down to Mrs. Carew’s to cheer her up,” concluded Mrs. Chilton. ”Which is where I think you’re wise,” approved the doctor, as they got to their feet to go to bed.

\--------------------------

Aunt Polly was already in bed, reading, when her husband came back into their room after finishing some notes in the study. He smiled at her, as she put her book aside and he removed his dressing gown and pyjama top, his eyes sparking as he looked at her. She watched him with a smile, thinking, as she often did, how handsome he was, what a loving and kind husband he was to her, and how much she loved being married to him. He got into bed and lay down beside her on his side, resting his head on one hand and stroking her hair with the other. Her soft brown curly hair was out of its pins and fell around her face and shoulders onto the pillow. Dr Chilton thought, yet again, what a beautiful, loving wife he had and how happy he was that he was married to her. “Good evening,” he said, in his warm, deep voice, smiling at her again. “Pollyanna is asleep, I just checked on her.” 

“Thank you.” She turned over and into his body as they wrapped their arms around each other and he kissed her forehead, then her lips. Dr Chilton murmured contentedly as her mouth melted to his, as her arms wrapped around him more tightly. He held her tighter and the kiss deepened, his fingers in her soft hair. He loved the feel of her body against his, the lucious warmth of her breasts against his chest, the touch of her lips and the way her hands caressed him. Over this first year of their marriage, their love had only deepened and they were even happier than when they first married. Dr Chilton loved being in love, being married and he was sure he was even more in love with his wife now, although how that was possible he didn't know. Being with her made him forget about everything else, the woman who loved and wanted him as much as he her. His hands ran through her hair, over her shoulders and she sighed softly when one of his hands caressed her face, and the other her breasts through her nightdress. She loved the comforting firmness of Dr Chilton's body pressing against hers in their bed, his hands caressing her hair, her face, her body, his lips melting to hers. Being in love and being married suited Aunt Polly and she was sure she had fallen even more deeply in love with Dr Chilton since their wedding. She was never happier than when she was in his arms.

He leant down to kiss her again, tenderly and softly, his hands caressing her cheeks, his eyes full of adoration. “I love you,” her husband whispered, his forehead resting against hers. Aunt Polly returned his kiss, her hands resting softly on his cheeks. “I love you, Richard,” she whispered back, her eyes sparkling with happiness, as they always did when they were together. “Very much.” Dr Chilton’s eyes closed as they kissed again, their lips meeting with more passion, his heart skipping a beat as his tongue met hers.

Later, they lay in each other’s arms. “Mmmmm” Aunt Polly murmured, as Dr Chilton pulled the sheets over them, keeping his arm around her. As he looked at her, he saw the warm sparkle and light in her eyes. He loved these moments with his wife, lying in their bed holding her after making love. So did she. There was such a happy light in his grey-blue eyes and his smile always made her heart skip a beat. She took her husband's other hand and held it in hers as they fell asleep.

——————————————

Pollyanna was told the next day; and this was the manner of it.

Dr Chilton bade his niece goodbye for the day with his bright smile and an affectionate squeeze of her shoulder, promising her that he would read with her that evening, and then taken Aunt Polly into his arms and kissed her on the mouth. Pollyanna watched with a grin as her aunt wrapped her arms around her husband and she heard her Uncle whisper something against her lips, and her aunt smiled. She always liked seeing them together.

“My dear,” began her aunt, when Pollyanna followed her into the sun parlour after they waved Dr Chilton goodbye, “how would you like to spend next winter in London?”

“With you and Uncle Richard?”

”No; I have decided to go with your uncle to Germany. But Mrs. Carew, a dear friend of Dr. Ames, has asked you to come and stay with her for the winter, and I think we shall let you go.”

Pollyanna’s face fell. ”But in London I won’t have Jimmy, or Mr Pendleton, or Mrs Snow, or anybody that I know, Aunt Polly.”

”No, dear; but you didn’t have them when you came here–till you found them.”

Pollyanna gave a sudden smile. “Why, Aunt Polly, so I didn’t! And that means that down in London there are some Jimmys and Mr Pendletons and Mrs Snows waiting for me that I don’t know, doesn’t it?”

Her aunt’s eyes twinkled. “Yes, dear.”

“Then I can be glad of that. I believe now, Aunt Polly, you know how to play the game better than I do. I never thought of the folks down there waiting for me to know them. And there’s such a lot of ’em, too! I saw some of them when I was there two years ago with Mrs. Gray. We were there two whole hours, you know, on my way here from out West. ”There was a man in the station–a perfectly lovely man who told me where to get a drink of water. Do you suppose he’s there now? I’d like to know him. And there was a nice lady with a little girl. They live in London. They said they did. The little girl’s name was Susie Smith. Perhaps I could get to know them. Do you suppose I could? And there was a boy, and another lady with a baby–only they lived in Honolulu, so probably I couldn’t find them there now. But there’d be Mrs. Carew, anyway. Who is Mrs. Carew, Aunt Polly? Is she a relation?”

”Dear me, Pollyanna!” exclaimed Mrs Chilton, half-laughingly, half-despairingly. ”How do you expect anybody to keep up with your tongue, much less your thoughts, when they skip to Honolulu and back again in two seconds! No, Mrs. Carew isn’t any relation to us. She’s Miss Della Wetherby’s sister. Do you remember Miss Wetherby at the Sanatorium?”

Pollyanna clapped her hands.

”HER sister? Miss Wetherby’s sister? Oh, then she’ll be lovely, I know. Miss Wetherby was. I loved Miss Wetherby. She had little smile-wrinkles all around her eyes and mouth, and she knew the NICEST stories. I only had her two months, though, because she only got there a little while before I came away. At first I was sorry that I hadn’t had her ALL the time, but afterwards I was glad; for you see if I HAD had her all the time, it would have been harder to say good-by than ’twas when I’d only had her a little while. And now it’ll seem as if I had her again, ’cause I’m going to have her sister.”

Mrs Chilton drew in her breath and bit her lip. ”But, Pollyanna, dear, you must not expect that they’ll be quite alike,” she ventured, with raised eyebrows.

”Why, they’re SISTERS, Aunt Polly,” argued the little girl, her eyes widening; ”and I thought sisters were always alike. We had two sets of ’em in the Ladies’ Aiders. One set was twins, and THEY were so alike you couldn’t tell which was Mrs Peck and which was Mrs Jones, until a wart grew on Mrs Jones’s nose, then of course we could, because we looked for the wart the first thing. And that’s what I told her one day when she was complaining that people called her Mrs Peck, and I said if they’d only look for the wart as I did, they’d know right off. But she acted real cross–I mean displeased, and I’m afraid she didn’t like it–though I don’t see why; for I should have thought she’d been glad there was something they could be told apart by, ’specially as she was the president, and didn’t like it when folks didn’t ACT as if she was the president–best seats and introductions and special attentions at church suppers, you know. But she didn’t, and afterwards I heard Mrs White tell Mrs Rawson that Mrs. Jones had done everything she could think of to get rid of that wart, even to trying to put salt on a bird’s tail. But I don’t see how THAT could do any good. Aunt Polly, DOES putting salt on a bird’s tail help the warts on people’s noses?”

“Of course not, child! How you do run on, Pollyanna, especially if you get started on those Ladies’ Aiders!”

“Do I, Aunt Polly?” asked the little girl, ruefully. ”And does it plague you? I don’t mean to plague you, honestly, Aunt Polly. And, anyway, if I do plague you about those Ladies’ Aiders, you can be kind o’ glad, for if I’m thinking of the Aiders, I’m sure to be thinking how glad I am that I don’t belong to them any longer, but have got an aunt all my own. You can be glad of that, can’t you, Aunt Polly?”

”Yes, yes, dear, of course I can, of course I can,” laughed Mrs. Chilton, rising to leave the room.

During the next few days, while letters concerning Pollyanna’s winter stay in London were flying back and forth, Pollyanna herself was preparing for that stay by a series of farewell visits to her Beldingsville friends.

Everybody in the little village knew Pollyanna now, and almost everybody was playing the game with her. The few who were not, were not refraining because of ignorance of what the glad game was. So to one house after another Pollyanna carried the news now that she was going down to London to spend the winter; and loudly rose the clamor of regret and remonstrance, all the way from Nancy in Aunt Polly’s own kitchen to the great house on the hill where lived John Pendleton. Nancy did not hesitate to say–to every one except her mistress–that SHE considered this London trip all foolishness, and that for her part she would have been glad to take Miss Pollyanna home with her to the Corners, she would, she would; and then Mrs Polly could have gone to Germany all she wanted to. On the hill John Pendleton said practically the same thing, only he did not hesitate to say it to Mrs Chilton herself. As for Jimmy, the twelve-year-old boy whom John Pendleton had taken into his home because Pollyanna wanted him to, and whom he had now adopted–because he wanted to himself–as for Jimmy, Jimmy was indignant, and he was not slow to show it. ”But you’ve just come,” he reproached Pollyanna, in the tone of voice a small boy is apt to use when he wants to hide the fact that he has a heart.  
”Why, I’ve been here ever since the last of March. Besides, it isn’t as if I was going to stay. It’s only for this winter.” “I don’t care. You’ve just been away for a whole year, ’most, and if I’d s’posed you was going away again right off, the first thing, I wouldn’t have helped one mite to meet you with flags and bands and things, that day you come from the Sanatorium.” ”Why, Jimmy Bean!” ejaculated Pollyanna, in amazed disapproval. Then, with a touch of superiority born of hurt pride, she observed: “I’m sure I didn’t ASK you to meet me with bands and things–and you made two mistakes in that sentence. You shouldn’t say ’you was’; and I think ’you come’ is wrong. It doesn’t sound right, anyway.” “Well, who cares if I did?”

Pollyanna’s eyes grew still more disapproving.

”You SAID you did–when you asked me this summer to tell you when you said things wrong, because Mr Pendleton was trying to make you talk right.”

”Well, if you’d been brought up in a ’sylum without any folks that cared, instead of by a whole lot of old women who didn’t have anything to do but tell you how to talk right, maybe you’d say ’you was,’ and a whole lot more worse things, Pollyanna Whittier!”  


”Why, Jimmy Bean!” flared Pollyanna. ”My Ladies’ Aiders weren’t old women–that is, not many of them, so very old,” she corrected hastily, her usual proclivity for truth and literalness superseding her anger;  
”and–”

”Well, I’m not Jimmy Bean, either,” interrupted the boy, uptilting his chin.

”You’re–not– Why, Jimmy Be– –What do you mean?” demanded the little girl.

”I’ve been adopted, LEGALLY. He’s been intending to do it, all along, he says, only he didn’t get to it. Now he’s done it. I’m to be called ’Jimmy Pendleton’ and I’m to call him Uncle John, only I ain’t–are not–I mean, I AM not used to it yet, so I hain’t–haven’t begun to call him that, much.”

The boy still spoke crossly, aggrievedly, but every trace of displeasure had fled from the little girl’s face at his words. She clapped her hands joyfully.

”Oh, how splendid! Now you’ve really got FOLKS–folks that care, you know. And you won’t ever have to explain that he wasn’t BORN your folks, ’cause your name’s the same now. I’m so glad, GLAD, GLAD!” The boy got up suddenly from the stone wall where they had been sitting, and walked off. His cheeks felt hot, and his eyes smarted with tears. It was to Pollyanna that he owed it all–this great good that had come to him; and he knew it. And it was to Pollyanna that he had just now been saying– He kicked a small stone fiercely, then another, and another. He thought those hot tears in his eyes were going to spill over and roll down his cheeks in spite of himself. He kicked another stone, then another; then he picked up a third stone and threw it with all his might. A minute later he strolled back to Pollyanna still sitting on the stone wall.

”I bet you I can hit that pine tree down there before you can,” he challenged airily.

”Bet you can’t,” cried Pollyanna, scrambling down from her perch. The race was not run after all, for Pollyanna remembered just in time that running fast was yet one of the forbidden luxuries for her. But so far as Jimmy was concerned, it did not matter. His cheeks were no longer hot, his eyes were not threatening to overflow with tears. Jimmy was himself again

—————————-----

That evening after dinner, as promised, Pollyanna and her Uncle read together while Aunt Polly sewed on the couch beside them. She looked smilingly at her husband and their little family and he glanced up, feeling her eyes on him, smiling back and raising his eyebrows. Dr Chilton loved coming home to his wife and niece each evening, giving Pollyanna a hug and her Aunt a kiss, dedicating his time and his work to his family, ensuring they were happy and cared for. His wife's love inspired him and gave him purpose and happiness. His workdays were full and busy and he enjoyed his work, but he made sure to never take patients of an evening, as he wanted his wife to know that she came first in his life and that time belonged to her. As Aunt Polly went back to her sewing, looking forward to laughing with her husband later about the whole village moaning and groaning about their plan to let Pollyanna stay in London, and Pollyanna continued reading, Dr Chilton surveyed the room with contentment. It was a coolish evening, towards the end of spring, and is was dark outside. Nancy had set a small fire going and the room was lit up with a warm light from the electric lights and the fire. His wife was beside him on one side, sewing, the soft brown curls he loved so much around her face, and his niece on the other. They were a family now. He and Aunt Polly had never had their own children but they were happy with just the two of them and their niece and he loved being a father figure to her. After Pollyanna had finished reading aloud, she lay in front of the fire to play and Dr Chilton got up and sat next to Aunt Polly. As he took up a medical text and settled himself beside her, she leaned over and kissed him and he brushed a strand of hair from her cheek, caressing her face. Out of the corner of her eye, Pollyanna looked over at her Aunt and Uncle kissing and she grinned to herself. They were very affectionate with each other when they thought no one was looking.


	3. A Dose of Pollyanna

As the eighth of September approached—the day Pollyanna was to arrive—Mrs. Ruth Carew became more and more nervously exasperated with herself. She declared that she had regretted just ONCE her promise to take the child—and that was ever since she had given it. Before twenty-four hours had passed she had, indeed, written to her sister demanding that she be released from the agreement; but Della had answered that it was quite too late, as already both she and Dr. Ames had written to Dr and Mrs Chilton.

Soon after that had come Della's letter saying that Mrs. Chilton had given her consent, and would in a few days come to London with her husband to make arrangements as to school, and the like. So there was nothing to be done, naturally, but to let matters take their course. Mrs. Carew realized that, and submitted to the inevitable, but with poor grace.

They arrived in due course and Mrs Carew observed Dr and Mrs Chilton, remembering that they were the lovers that Pollyanna brought back together. Della was right; the tall, smiling doctor with the easy manner and his pretty, dry-humoured wife were a very nice couple. Mrs Carew remembered her sister telling her that they had been married just over a year and she thought to herself this Pollyanna couldn't be all bad, because they certainly looked very happy and clearly loved each other. "Well," she muttered inwardly, with bitterness. "That's all very nice for them, but I can't see how all this has anything to do with me." She tried to be decently civil when they made their appearance, but she was very glad that limited time made the Chilton's stay of very short duration, and full to the brim of business

It was well, indeed, perhaps, that Pollyanna's arrival was to be at a date no later than the eighth; for time, instead of reconciling Mrs. Carew to the prospective new member of her household, was filling her with angry impatience at what she was pleased to call her "absurd yielding to Della's crazy scheme."

Nor was Della herself in the least unaware of her sister's state of mind. If outwardly she maintained a bold front, inwardly she was very fearful as to results; but on Pollyanna she was pinning her faith, and because she did pin her faith on Pollyanna, she determined on the bold stroke of leaving the little girl to begin her fight entirely unaided and alone. She contrived, therefore, that Mrs. Carew should meet them at the station upon their arrival; then, as soon as greetings and introductions were over, she hurriedly pleaded a previous engagement and took herself off. Mrs. Carew, therefore, had scarcely time to look at her new charge before she found herself alone with the child.

"Oh, but Della, Della, you mustn't—I can't—" she called agitatedly, after the retreating figure of the nurse.

But Della, if she heard, did not heed; and, plainly annoyed and vexed, Mrs. Carew turned back to the child at her side.

"What a shame! She didn't hear, did she?" Pollyanna was saying, her eyes, also, wistfully following the nurse. "And I didn't WANT her to go now a bit. But then, I've got you, haven't I? I can be glad for that."

"Oh, yes, you've got me—and I've got you," returned the lady, not very graciously. "Come, we go this way," she directed, with a motion toward the right.

Obediently Pollyanna turned and trotted at Mrs. Carew's side, through the huge station; but she looked up once or twice rather anxiously into the lady's unsmiling face. At last she spoke hesitatingly.

"I expect maybe you thought—I'd be pretty," she hazarded, in a troubled voice.

"P—pretty?" repeated Mrs. Carew.

"Yes—with curls, you know, like Aunt Polly, and all that. She's ever so pretty! And of course you did wonder how I DID look, just as I did you. Only I KNEW you'd be pretty and nice, on account of your sister. I had her to go by, and you didn't have anybody. And of course I'm not pretty, on account of the freckles, and it ISN'T nice when you've been expecting a PRETTY little girl, to have one come like me; and—"

"Nonsense, child!" interrupted Mrs. Carew, a trifle sharply. "Come, we'll see to your trunk now, then we'll go home. I had hoped that my sister would come with us; but it seems she didn't see fit—even for this one night."

Pollyanna smiled and nodded.

"I know; but she couldn't, probably. Somebody wanted her, I expect. Somebody was always wanting her at the Sanatorium. It's a bother, of course, when folks do want you all the time, isn't it?—'cause you can't have yourself when you want yourself, lots of times. Still, you can be kind of glad for that, for it IS nice to be wanted, isn't it?"

There was no reply—perhaps because for the first time in her life Mrs. Carew was wondering if anywhere in the world there was any one who really wanted her—not that she WISHED to be wanted, of course, she told herself angrily, pulling herself up with a jerk, and frowning down at the child by her side.

Pollyanna did not see the frown. Pollyanna's eyes were on the hurrying throngs about them.

"My! what a lot of people," she was saying happily. "There's even more of them than there was the other time I was here; but I haven't seen anybody, yet, that I saw then, though I've looked for them everywhere. Of course the lady and the little baby lived in Honolulu, so probably THEY WOULDN'T be here; but there was a little girl, Susie Smith—she lived right here in Boston. Maybe you know her though. Do you know Susie Smith?"

"No, I don't know Susie Smith," replied Mrs. Carew, dryly.

"Don't you? She's awfully nice, and SHE'S pretty—black curls, you know; the kind I'm going to have when I go to Heaven. But never mind; maybe I can find her for you so you WILL know her. Oh, my! what a perfectly lovely automobile! And are we going to ride in it?" broke off Pollyanna, as they came to a pause before a handsome limousine, the door of which a liveried chauffeur was holding open.

[Illustration: "'Oh, my! What a perfectly lovely automobile!'"]

The chauffeur tried to hide a smile—and failed. Mrs. Carew, however, answered with the weariness of one to whom "rides" are never anything but a means of locomotion from one tiresome place to another probably quite as tiresome.

"Yes, we're going to ride in it." Then "Home, Perkins," she added to the deferential chauffeur.

"Oh, my, is it yours?" asked Pollyanna, detecting the unmistakable air of ownership in her hostess's manner. "How perfectly lovely! Then you must be rich—awfully—I mean EXCEEDINGLY rich, more than the kind that just has carpets in every room and ice cream Sundays, like the Whites—one of my Ladies' Aiders, you know. (That is, SHE was a Ladies' Aider.) I used to think THEY were rich, but I know now that being really rich means you've got diamond rings and hired girls and sealskin coats, and dresses made of silk and velvet for every day, and an automobile. Have you got all those?"

"Why, y-yes, I suppose I have," admitted Mrs. Carew, with a faint smile.

"Then you are rich, of course," nodded Pollyanna, wisely. "My Aunt Polly has them, too, only her automobile is a horse. My! but don't I just love to ride in these things," exulted Pollyanna, with a happy little bounce. "You see I never did before, except the one that ran over me. They put me IN that one after they'd got me out from under it; but of course I didn't know about it, so I couldn't enjoy it. Since then I haven't been in one at all. Aunt Polly doesn't like them. Uncle Richard does, though, and he wants one. He says he's got to have one, in his business. He's a doctor, you know, and all the other doctors in town have got them now. I don't know how it will come out! Aunt Polly is all stirred up over it. You see, she wants Uncle Richard to have what he wants, only she wants him to want what she wants him to want. See?"

Mrs. Carew laughed suddenly.

"Yes, my dear, I think I see," she answered demurely, though her eyes still carried—for them—a most unusual twinkle.

"All right," sighed Pollyanna contentedly. "I thought you would; still, it did sound sort of mixed when I said it. Oh, Aunt Polly says she wouldn't mind having an automobile, so much, if she could have the only one there was in the world, so there wouldn't be any one else to run into her; but—My! what a lot of houses!" broke off Pollyanna, looking about her with round eyes of wonder. "Don't they ever stop? Still, there'd have to be a lot of them for all those folks to live in, of course, that I saw at the station, besides all these here on the streets. And of course where there ARE more folks, there are more to know. I love folks. Don't you?"

"LOVE FOLKS!"

"Yes, just folks, I mean. Anybody—everybody."

"Well, no, Pollyanna, I can't say that I do," replied Mrs. Carew, coldly, her brows contracted.

Mrs. Carew's eyes had lost their twinkle. They were turned rather mistrustfully, indeed, on Pollyanna. To herself Mrs. Carew was saying: "Now for preachment number one, I suppose, on my duty to mix with my fellow-men, a la Sister Della!"

"Don't you? Oh, I do," sighed Pollyanna. "They're all so nice and so different, you know. And down here there must be such a lot of them to be nice and different. Oh, you don't know how glad I am so soon that I came! I knew I would be, anyway, just as soon as I found out you were YOU—that is, Miss Wetherby's sister, I mean. I love Miss Wetherby, so I knew I should you, too; for of course you'd be alike—sisters, so—even if you weren't twins like Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Peck—and they weren't quite alike, anyway, on account of the wart. But I reckon you don't know what I mean, so I'll tell you."

And thus it happened that Mrs. Carew, who had been steeling herself for a preachment on social ethics, found herself, much to her surprise and a little to her discomfiture, listening to the story of a wart on the nose of one Mrs. Peck, Ladies' Aider.

By the time the story was finished the limousine had turned into Commonwealth Avenue, and Pollyanna immediately began to exclaim at the beauty of a street which had such a "lovely big long yard all the way up and down through the middle of it," and which was all the nicer, she said, "after all those little narrow streets."

"Only I should think every one would want to live on it," she commented enthusiastically.

"Very likely; but that would hardly be possible," retorted Mrs. Carew, with uplifted eyebrows.

Pollyanna, mistaking the expression on her face for one of dissatisfaction that her own home was not on the beautiful Avenue, hastened to make amends.

"Why, no, of course not," she agreed. "And I didn't mean that the narrower streets weren't just as nice," she hurried on; "and even better, maybe, because you could be glad you didn't have to go so far when you wanted to run across the way to borrow eggs or soda, and—Oh, but DO you live here?" she interrupted herself, as the car came to a stop before the imposing Carew doorway. "Do you live here, Mrs. Carew?"

"Why, yes, of course I live here," returned the lady, with just a touch of irritation.

"Oh, how glad, GLAD you must be to live in such a perfectly lovely place!" exulted the little girl, springing to the sidewalk and looking eagerly about her. "Aren't you glad?"

Mrs. Carew did not reply. With unsmiling lips and frowning brow she was stepping from the limousine.

For the second time in five minutes, Pollyanna hastened to make amends.

"Of course I don't mean the kind of glad that's sinfully proud," she explained, searching Mrs. Carew's face with anxious eyes. "Maybe you thought I did, same as Aunt Polly used to, sometimes. I don't mean the kind that's glad because you've got something somebody else can't have; but the kind that just—just makes you want to shout and yell and bang doors, you know, even if it isn't proper," she finished, dancing up and down on her toes.

The chauffeur turned his back precipitately, and busied himself with the car. Mrs. Carew, still with unsmiling lips and frowning brow led the way up the broad stone steps.

"Come, Pollyanna," was all she said, crisply.

It was five days later that Della Wetherby received the letter from her sister, and very eagerly she tore it open. It was the first that had come since Pollyanna's arrival in London.

"My dear Sister," Mrs. Carew had written. "For pity's sake, Della, why didn't you give me some sort of an idea what to expect from this child you have insisted upon my taking? I'm nearly wild—and I simply can't send her away. I've tried to three times, but every time, before I get the words out of my mouth, she stops them by telling me what a perfectly lovely time she is having, and how glad she is to be here, and how good I am to let her live with me while her Aunt Polly and Uncle Richard have gone to Germany. Now how, pray, in the face of that, can I turn around and say 'Well, won't you please go home; I don't want you'? And the absurd part of it is, I don't believe it has ever entered her head that I don't WANT her here; and I can't seem to make it enter her head, either.

"Of course if she begins to preach, and to tell me to count my blessings, I SHALL send her away. You know I told you, to begin with, that I wouldn't permit that. And I won't. Two or three times I have thought she was going to (preach, I mean), but so far she has always ended up with some ridiculous story about those Ladies' Aiders of hers; so the sermon gets sidetracked—luckily for her, if she wants to stay.

"But, really, Della, she is impossible. Listen. In the first place she is wild with delight over the house. The very first day she got here she begged me to open every room; and she was not satisfied until every shade in the house was up, so that she might 'see all the perfectly lovely things,' which, she declared, were even nicer than Mr. John Pendleton's—whoever he may be, somebody in Beldingsville, I believe. Anyhow, he isn't a Ladies' Aider. I've found out that much.

"Then, as if it wasn't enough to keep me running from room to room (as if I were the guide on a 'personally conducted'), what did she do but discover a white satin evening gown that I hadn't worn for years, and beseech me to put it on. And I did put it on—why, I can't imagine, only that I found myself utterly helpless in her hands.

"But that was only the beginning. She begged then to see everything that I had, and she was so perfectly funny in her stories of the missionary barrels, which she used to 'dress out of,' that I had to laugh—though I almost cried, too, to think of the wretched things that poor child had to wear. Of course gowns led to jewels, and she made such a fuss over my two or three rings that I foolishly opened the safe, just to see her eyes pop out. And, Della, I thought that child would go crazy. She put on to me every ring, brooch, bracelet, and necklace that I owned, and insisted on fastening both diamond tiaras in my hair (when she found out what they were), until there I sat, hung with pearls and diamonds and emeralds, and feeling like a heathen goddess in a Hindu temple, especially when that preposterous child began to dance round and round me, clapping her hands and chanting, 'Oh, how perfectly lovely, how perfectly lovely! How I would love to hang you on a string in the window—you'd make such a beautiful prism!'

"I was just going to ask her what on earth she meant by that when down she dropped in the middle of the floor and began to cry. And what do you suppose she was crying for? Because she was so glad she'd got eyes that could see! Now what do you think of that?

"Of course this isn't all. It's only the beginning. Pollyanna has been here four days, and she's filled every one of them full. She already numbers among her friends the ash-man, the policeman on the beat, and the paper boy, to say nothing of every servant in my employ. They seem actually bewitched with her, every one of them. But please do not think I am, for I'm not. I would send the child back to you at once if I didn't feel obliged to fulfil my promise to keep her this winter. As for her making me forget Jamie and my great sorrow—that is impossible. She only makes me feel my loss all the more keenly—because I have her instead of him. But, as I said, I shall keep her—until she begins to preach. Then back she goes to you. But she hasn't preached yet.

"Lovingly but distractedly yours,

"RUTH."

"'Hasn't preached yet,' indeed!" chuckled Della Wetherby to herself, folding up the closely-written sheets of her sister's letter. "Oh, Ruth, Ruth! and yet you admit that you've opened every room, raised every shade, decked yourself in satin and jewels—and Pollyanna hasn't been there a week yet. But she hasn't preached—oh, no, she hasn't preached!"


	4. The Game and Mrs Carew

London, to Pollyanna, was a new experience, and certainly Pollyanna, to London—such part of it as was privileged to know her—was very much of a new experience.

Pollyanna said she liked London, but that she did wish it was not quite so big.

"You see," she explained earnestly to Mrs. Carew, the day following her arrival, "I want to see and know it ALL, and I can't. It's just like Aunt Polly and Uncle Richard's company dinners; there's so much to eat—I mean, to see—that you don't eat—I mean, see—anything, because you're always trying to decide what to eat—I mean, to see.

"Of course you can be glad there IS such a lot," resumed Pollyanna, after taking breath, "'cause a whole lot of anything is nice—that is, GOOD things; not such things as medicine and funerals, of course!—but at the same time I couldn't used to help wishing Aunt Polly's company dinners could be spread out a little over the days when there wasn't any cake and pie; and I feel the same way about London. I wish I could take part of it home with me up to Beldingsville so I'd have SOMETHING new next summer. But of course I can't. Cities aren't like frosted cake—and, anyhow, even the cake didn't keep very well. I tried it, and it dried up, 'specially the frosting. I reckon the time to take frosting and good times is while they are going; so I want to see all I can now while I'm here."

Pollyanna, unlike the people who think that to see the world one must begin at the most distant point, began her "seeing London" by a thorough exploration of her immediate surroundings—the beautiful Commonwealth Avenue residence which was now her home. This, with her school work, fully occupied her time and attention for some days.

There was so much to see, and so much to learn; and everything was so marvelous and so beautiful, from the tiny buttons in the wall that flooded the rooms with light, to the great silent ballroom hung with mirrors and pictures. There were so many delightful people to know, too, for besides Mrs. Carew herself there were Mary, who dusted the drawing-rooms, answered the bell, and accompanied Pollyanna to and from school each day; Bridget, who lived in the kitchen and cooked; Jennie, who waited at table, and Perkins who drove the automobile. And they were all so delightful—yet so different!

Pollyanna had arrived on a Monday, so it was almost a week before the first Sunday. She came downstairs that morning with a beaming countenance.

"I love Sundays," she sighed happily.

"Do you?" Mrs. Carew's voice had the weariness of one who loves no day.

"Yes, on account of church, you know, and Sunday school. Which do you like best, church, or Sunday school?"

"Well, really, I—" began Mrs. Carew, who seldom went to church and never went to Sunday school.

"'Tis hard to tell, isn't it?" interposed Pollyanna, with luminous but serious eyes. "But you see I like church best, on account of father. You know he was a minister, and of course he's really up in Heaven with mother and the rest of us, but I try to imagine him down here, lots of times; and it's easiest in church, when the minister is talking. I shut my eyes and imagine it's father up there; and it helps lots. I'm so glad we can imagine things, aren't you?"

"I'm not so sure of that, Pollyanna."

"Oh, but just think how much nicer our IMAGINED things are than our really truly ones—that is, of course, yours aren't, because your REAL ones are so nice." Mrs. Carew angrily started to speak, but Pollyanna was hurrying on. "And of course MY real ones are ever so much nicer than they used to be. But all that time I was hurt, when my legs didn't go, I just had to keep imagining all the time, just as hard as I could. And of course now there are lots of times when I do it—like about father, and all that. And so to-day I'm just going to imagine it's father up there in the pulpit. What time do we go?"

"GO?"

"To church, I mean."

"But, Pollyanna, I don't—that is, I'd rather not—" Mrs. Carew cleared her throat and tried again to say that she was not going to church at all; that she almost never went. But with Pollyanna's confident little face and happy eyes before her, she could not do it.

"Why, I suppose—about quarter past ten—if we walk," she said then, almost crossly. "It's only a little way."

Thus it happened that Mrs. Carew on that bright September morning occupied for the first time in months the Carew pew in the very fashionable and elegant church to which she had gone as a girl, and which she still supported liberally—so far as money went.

To Pollyanna that Sunday morning service was a great wonder and joy. The marvelous music of the vested choir, the opalescent rays from the jeweled windows, the impassioned voice of the preacher, and the reverent hush of the worshiping throng filled her with an ecstasy that left her for a time almost speechless. Not until they were nearly home did she fervently breathe:

"Oh, Mrs. Carew, I've just been thinking how glad I am we don't have to live but just one day at a time!"

Mrs. Carew frowned and looked down sharply. Mrs. Carew was in no mood for preaching. She had just been obliged to endure it from the pulpit, she told herself angrily, and she would NOT listen to it from this chit of a child. Moreover, this "living one day at a time" theory was a particularly pet doctrine of Della's. Was not Della always saying: "But you only have to live one minute at a time, Ruth, and any one can endure anything for one minute at a time!"

"Well?" said Mrs. Carew now, tersely.

"Yes. Only think what I'd do if I had to live yesterday and to-day and to-morrow all at once," sighed Pollyanna. "Such a lot of perfectly lovely things, you know. But I've had yesterday, and now I'm living to-day, and I've got to-morrow still coming, and next Sunday, too. Honestly, Mrs. Carew, if it wasn't Sunday now, and on this nice quiet street, I should just dance and shout and yell. I couldn't help it. But it's being Sunday, so, I shall have to wait till I get home and then take a hymn—the most rejoicingest hymn I can think of. What is the most rejoicingest hymn? Do you know, Mrs. Carew?"

"No, I can't say that I do," answered Mrs. Carew, faintly, looking very much as if she were searching for something she had lost. For a woman who expects, because things are so bad, to be told that she need stand only one day at a time, it is disarming, to say the least, to be told that, because things are so good, it is lucky she does not HAVE to stand but one day at a time!

On Monday, the next morning, Pollyanna went to school for the first time alone. She knew the way perfectly now, and it was only a short walk. Pollyanna enjoyed her school very much. It was a small private school for girls, and was quite a new experience, in its way; but Pollyanna liked new experiences.

Mrs. Carew, however, did not like new experiences, and she was having a good many of them these days. For one who is tired of everything to be in so intimate a companionship with one to whom everything is a fresh and fascinating joy must needs result in annoyance, to say the least. And Mrs. Carew was more than annoyed. She was exasperated. Yet to herself she was forced to admit that if any one asked her why she was exasperated, the only reason she could give would be "Because Pollyanna is so glad"—and even Mrs. Carew would hardly like to give an answer like that.

To Della, however, Mrs. Carew did write that the word "glad" had got on her nerves, and that sometimes she wished she might never hear it again. She still admitted that Pollyanna had not preached—that she had not even once tried to make her play the game. What the child did do, however, was invariably to take Mrs. Carew's "gladness" as a matter of course, which, to one who HAD no gladness, was most provoking.

It was during the second week of Pollyanna's stay that Mrs. Carew's annoyance overflowed into irritable remonstrance. The immediate cause thereof was Pollyanna's glowing conclusion to a story about one of her Ladies' Aiders.

"She was playing the game, Mrs. Carew. But maybe you don't know what the game is. I'll tell you. It's a lovely game."

But Mrs. Carew held up her hand.

"Never mind, Pollyanna," she demurred. "I know all about the game. My sister told me, and—and I must say that I—I should not care for it."

"Why, of course not, Mrs. Carew!" exclaimed Pollyanna in quick apology. "I didn't mean the game for you. You couldn't play it, of course."

"I COULDN'T play it!" ejaculated Mrs. Carew, who, though she WOULD not play this silly game, was in no mood to be told that she COULD not.

"Why, no, don't you see?" laughed Pollyanna, gleefully. "The game is to find something in everything to be glad about; and you couldn't even begin to hunt, for there isn't anything about you but what you COULD be glad about. There wouldn't BE any game to it for you! Don't you see?"

Mrs. Carew flushed angrily. In her annoyance she said more than perhaps she meant to say.

"Well, no, Pollyanna, I can't say that I do," she differed coldly. "As it happens, you see, I can find nothing whatever to be—glad for."

For a moment Pollyanna stared blankly. Then she fell back in amazement.

"Why, MRS. CAREW!" she breathed.

"Well, what is there—for me?" challenged the woman, forgetting all about, for the moment, that she was never going to allow Pollyanna to "preach."

"Why, there's—there's everything," murmured Pollyanna, still with that dazed unbelief. "There—there's this beautiful house."

"It's just a place to eat and sleep—and I don't want to eat and sleep."

"But there are all these perfectly lovely things," faltered Pollyanna.

"I'm tired of them."

"And your automobile that will take you anywhere."

"I don't want to go anywhere."

Pollyanna quite gasped aloud.

"But think of the people and things you could see, Mrs. Carew."

"They would not interest me, Pollyanna."

Once again Pollyanna stared in amazement. The troubled frown on her face deepened.

"But, Mrs. Carew, I don't see," she urged. "Always, before, there have been BAD things for folks to play the game on, and the badder they are the more fun 'tis to get them out—find the things to be glad for, I mean. But where there AREN'T any bad things, I shouldn't know how to play the game myself."

There was no answer for a time. Mrs. Carew sat with her eyes out the window. Gradually the angry rebellion on her face changed to a look of hopeless sadness. Very slowly then she turned and said:

"Pollyanna, I had thought I wouldn't tell you this; but I've decided that I will. I'm going to tell you why nothing that I have can make me—glad." And she began the story of Jamie, the little four-year-old boy who, eight long years before, had stepped as into another world, leaving the door fast shut between.

"And you've never seen him since—anywhere?" faltered Pollyanna, with tear-wet eyes, when the story was done.

"Never."

"But we'll find him, Mrs. Carew—I'm sure we'll find him."

Mrs. Carew shook her head sadly.

"But I can't. I've looked everywhere, even in foreign lands."

"But he must be somewhere."

"He may be—dead, Pollyanna."

Pollyanna gave a quick cry.

"Oh, no, Mrs. Carew. Please don't say that! Let's imagine he's alive. We CAN do that, and that'll help; and when we get him IMAGINED alive we can just as well imagine we're going to find him. And that'll help a whole lot more."

"But I'm afraid he's—dead, Pollyanna," choked Mrs. Carew.

"You don't know it for sure, do you?" besought the little girl, anxiously.

"N-no."

"Well, then, you're just imagining it," maintained Pollyanna, in triumph. "And if you can imagine him dead, you can just as well imagine him alive, and it'll be a whole lot nicer while you're doing it. Don't you see? And some day, I'm just sure you'll find him. Why, Mrs. Carew, you CAN play the game now! You can play it on Jamie. You can be glad every day, for every day brings you just one day nearer to the time when you're going to find him. See?"

But Mrs. Carew did not "see." She rose drearily to her feet and said:

"No, no, child! You don't understand—you don't understand. Now run away, please, and read, or do anything you like. My head aches. I'm going to lie down."

And Pollyanna, with a troubled, sober face, slowly left the room.


	5. Pollyanna takes a Walk

It was on the second Saturday afternoon that Pollyanna took her memorable walk. Heretofore Pollyanna had not walked out alone, except to go to and from school. That she would ever attempt to explore London streets by herself, never occurred to Mrs. Carew, hence she naturally had never forbidden it. In Beldingsville, however, Pollyanna had found—especially at the first—her chief diversion in strolling about the rambling old village streets in search of new friends and new adventures.

On this particular Saturday afternoon Mrs. Carew had said, as she often did say: "There, there, child, run away; please do. Go where you like and do what you like, only don't, please, ask me any more questions to-day!"

Until now, left to herself, Pollyanna had always found plenty to interest her within the four walls of the house; for, if inanimate things failed, there were yet Mary, Jennie, Bridget, and Perkins. To-day, however, Mary had a headache, Jennie was trimming a new hat, Bridget was making apple pies, and Perkins was nowhere to be found. Moreover it was a particularly beautiful September day, and nothing within the house was so alluring as the bright sunlight and balmy air outside. So outside Pollyanna went and dropped herself down on the steps.

For some time she watched in silence the well-dressed men, women, and children, who walked briskly by the house, or else sauntered more leisurely through the parkway that extended up and down the middle of the Avenue. Then she got to her feet, skipped down the steps, and stood looking, first to the right, then to the left.

Pollyanna had decided that she, too, would take a walk. It was a beautiful day for a walk, and not once, yet, had she taken one at all—not a REAL walk. Just going to and from school did not count. So she would take one to-day. Mrs. Carew would not mind. Had she not told her to do just what she pleased so long as she asked no more questions? And there was the whole long afternoon before her. Only think what a lot one might see in a whole long afternoon! And it really was such a beautiful day. She would go—this way! And with a little whirl and skip of pure joy, Pollyanna turned and walked blithely down the Avenue.

Into the eyes of those she met Pollyanna smiled joyously. She was disappointed—but not surprised—that she received no answering smile in return. She was used to that now—in London. She still smiled, however, hopefully: there might be some one, sometime, who would smile back.

Mrs. Carew's home was very near the beginning of Commonwealth Avenue, so it was not long before Pollyanna found herself at the edge of a street crossing her way at right angles. Across the street, in all its autumn glory, lay what to Pollyanna was the most beautiful "yard" she had ever seen—the London Public Garden.

For a moment Pollyanna hesitated, her eyes longingly fixed on the wealth of beauty before her. That it was the private grounds of some rich man or woman, she did not for a moment doubt. Once, with Dr. Ames at the Sanatorium, she had been taken to call on a lady who lived in a beautiful house surrounded by just such walks and trees and flower-beds as these.

Pollyanna wanted now very much to cross the street and walk in those grounds, but she doubted if she had the right. To be sure, others were there, moving about, she could see; but they might be invited guests, of course. After she had seen two women, one man, and a little girl unhesitatingly enter the gate and walk briskly down the path, however, Pollyanna concluded that she, too, might go. Watching her chance she skipped nimbly across the street and entered the Garden.

It was even more beautiful close at hand than it had been at a distance. Birds twittered over her head, and a squirrel leaped across the path ahead of her. On benches here and there sat men, women, and children. Through the trees flashed the sparkle of the sun on water; and from somewhere came the shouts of children and the sound of music.

Once again Pollyanna hesitated; then, a little timidly, she accosted a handsomely-dressed young woman coming toward her.

"Please, is this—a party?" she asked.

The young woman stared.

"A party!" she repeated dazedly.

"Yes'm. I mean, is it all right for me—to be here?"

"For you to be here? Why, of course. It's for—for everybody!" exclaimed the young woman.

"Oh, that's all right, then. I'm glad I came," beamed Pollyanna.

The young woman said nothing; but she turned back and looked at Pollyanna still dazedly as she hurried away.

Pollyanna, not at all surprised that the owner of this beautiful place should be so generous as to give a party to everybody, continued on her way. At the turn of the path she came upon a small girl and a doll carriage. She stopped with a glad little cry, but she had not said a dozen words before from somewhere came a young woman with hurrying steps and a disapproving voice; a young woman who held out her hand to the small girl, and said sharply:

"Here, Gladys, Gladys, come away with me. Hasn't mama told you not to talk to strange children?"

"But I'm not strange children," explained Pollyanna in eager defense. "I live right here in London, now, and—" But the young woman and the little girl dragging the doll carriage were already far down the path; and with a half-stifled sigh Pollyanna fell back. For a moment she stood silent, plainly disappointed; then resolutely she lifted her chin and went forward.

"Well, anyhow, I can be glad for that," she nodded to herself, "for now maybe I'll find somebody even nicer—Susie Smith, perhaps, or even Mrs. Carew's Jamie. Anyhow, I can IMAGINE I'm going to find them; and if I don't find THEM, I can find SOMEBODY!" she finished, her wistful eyes on the self-absorbed people all about her.

Undeniably Pollyanna was lonesome. Brought up by her father and the Ladies' Aid Society in a small English town, she had counted every house in the village her home, and every man, woman, and child her friend. Coming to her aunt in another village, across the country, at eleven years of age, she had promptly assumed that conditions would differ only in that the homes and the friends would be new, and therefore even more delightful, possibly, for they would be "different"—and Pollyanna did so love "different" things and people! Her first and always her supreme delight in Beldingsville, therefore, had been her long rambles about the town and the charming visits with the new friends she had made. Quite naturally, in consequence, London, as she first saw it, seemed to Pollyanna even more delightfully promising in its possibilities.

Thus far, however, Pollyanna had to admit that in one respect, at least, it had been disappointing: she had been here nearly two weeks and she did not yet know the people who lived across the street, or even next door. More inexplicable still, Mrs. Carew herself did not know many of them, and not any of them well. She seemed, indeed, utterly indifferent to her neighbors, which was most amazing from Pollyanna's point of view; but nothing she could say appeared to change Mrs. Carew's attitude in the matter at all.

"They do not interest me, Pollyanna," was all she would say; and with this, Pollyanna—whom they did interest very much—was forced to be content.

To-day, on her walk, however, Pollyanna had started out with high hopes, yet thus far she seemed destined to be disappointed. Here all about her were people who were doubtless most delightful—if she only knew them. But she did not know them. Worse yet, there seemed to be no prospect that she would know them, for they did not, apparently, wish to know her: Pollyanna was still smarting under the nurse's sharp warning concerning "strange children."

"Well, I reckon I'll just have to show 'em that I'm not strange children," she said at last to herself, moving confidently forward again.

Pursuant of this idea Pollyanna smiled sweetly into the eyes of the next person she met, and said blithely:

"It's a nice day, isn't it?"

"Er—what? Oh, y-yes, it is," murmured the lady addressed, as she hastened on a little faster.

Twice again Pollyanna tried the same experiment, but with like disappointing results. Soon she came upon the little pond that she had seen sparkling in the sunlight through the trees. It was a beautiful pond, and on it were several pretty little boats full of laughing children. As she watched them, Pollyanna felt more and more dissatisfied to remain by herself. It was then that, spying a man sitting alone not far away, she advanced slowly toward him and sat down on the other end of the bench. Once Pollyanna would have danced unhesitatingly to the man's side and suggested acquaintanceship with a cheery confidence that had no doubt of a welcome; but recent rebuffs had filled her with unaccustomed diffidence. Covertly she looked at the man now.

He was not very good to look at. His garments, though new, were dusty, and plainly showed lack of care. They were of the cut and style (though Pollyanna of course did not know this) that the State gives its prisoners as a freedom suit. His face was a pasty white, and was adorned with a week's beard. His hat was pulled far down over his eyes. With his hands in his pockets he sat idly staring at the ground.

For a long minute Pollyanna said nothing; then hopefully she began:

"It IS a nice day, isn't it?"

The man turned his head with a start.

"Eh? Oh—er—what did you say?" he questioned, with a curiously frightened look around to make sure the remark was addressed to him.

"I said 'twas a nice day," explained Pollyanna in hurried earnestness; "but I don't care about that especially. That is, of course I'm glad it's a nice day, but I said it just as a beginning to things, and I'd just as soon talk about something else—anything else. It's only that I wanted you to talk—about something, you see."

The man gave a low laugh. Even to Pollyanna the laugh sounded a little queer, though she did not know (as did the man) that a laugh to his lips had been a stranger for many months.

"So you want me to talk, do you?" he said a little sadly. "Well, I don't see but what I shall have to do it, then. Still, I should think a nice little lady like you might find lots nicer people to talk to than an old duffer like me."

"Oh, but I like old duffers," exclaimed Pollyanna quickly; "that is, I like the OLD part, and I don't know what a duffer is, so I can't dislike that. Besides, if you are a duffer, I reckon I like duffers. Anyhow, I like you," she finished, with a contented little settling of herself in her seat that carried conviction.

"Humph! Well, I'm sure I'm flattered," smiled the man, ironically. Though his face and words expressed polite doubt, it might have been noticed that he sat a little straighter on the bench. "And, pray, what shall we talk about?"

"It's—it's infinitesimal to me. That means I don't care, doesn't it?" asked Pollyanna, with a beaming smile. "Aunt Polly says that, whatever I talk about, anyhow, I always bring up at the Ladies' Aiders. But I reckon that's because they brought me up first, don't you? We might talk about the party. I think it's a perfectly beautiful party—now that I know some one."

"P-party?"

"Yes—this, you know—all these people here to-day. It IS a party, isn't it? The lady said it was for everybody, so I stayed—though I haven't got to where the house is, yet, that's giving the party."

The man's lips twitched.

"Well, little lady, perhaps it is a party, in a way," he smiled; "but the 'house' that's giving it is the city of London. This is the Public Garden—a public park, you understand, for everybody."

"Is it? Always? And I may come here any time I want to? Oh, how perfectly lovely! That's even nicer than I thought it could be. I'd worried for fear I couldn't ever come again, after to-day, you see. I'm glad now, though, that I didn't know it just at the first, for it's all the nicer now. Nice things are nicer when you've been worrying for fear they won't be nice, aren't they?"

"Perhaps they are—if they ever turn out to be nice at all," conceded the man, a little gloomily.

"Yes, I think so," nodded Pollyanna, not noticing the gloom. "But isn't it beautiful—here?" she gloried. "I wonder if Mrs. Carew knows about it—that it's for anybody, so. Why, I should think everybody would want to come here all the time, and just stay and look around."

The man's face hardened.

"Well, there are a few people in the world who have got a job—who've got something to do besides just to come here and stay and look around; but I don't happen to be one of them."

"Don't you? Then you can be glad for that, can't you?" sighed Pollyanna, her eyes delightedly following a passing boat.

The man's lips parted indignantly, but no words came. Pollyanna was still talking.

"I wish I didn't have anything to do but that. I have to go to school. Oh, I like school; but there's such a whole lot of things I like better. Still I'm glad I CAN go to school. I'm 'specially glad when I remember how last winter I didn't think I could ever go again. You see, I lost my legs for a while—I mean, they didn't go; and you know you never know how much you use things, till you don't have 'em. And eyes, too. Did you ever think what a lot you do with eyes? I didn't till I went to the Sanatorium. There was a lady there who had just got blind the year before. I tried to get her to play the game—finding something to be glad about, you know—but she said she couldn't; and if I wanted to know why, I might tie up my eyes with my handkerchief for just one hour. And I did. It was awful. Did you ever try it?"

"Why, n-no, I didn't." A half-vexed, half-baffled expression was coming to the man's face.

"Well, don't. It's awful. You can't do anything—not anything that you want to do. But I kept it on the whole hour. Since then I've been so glad, sometimes—when I see something perfectly lovely like this, you know—I've been so glad I wanted to cry;—'cause I COULD see it, you know. She's playing the game now, though—that blind lady is. Miss Wetherby told me."

"The—GAME?"

"Yes; the glad game. Didn't I tell you? Finding something in everything to be glad about. Well, she's found it now—about her eyes, you know. Her husband is the kind of a man that goes to help make the laws, and she had him ask for one that would help blind people, 'specially little babies. And she went herself and talked and told those men how it felt to be blind. And they made it—that law. And they said that she did more than anybody else, even her husband, to help make it, and that they didn't believe there would have been any law at all if it hadn't been for her. So now she says she's glad she lost her eyes, 'cause she's kept so many little babies from growing up to be blind like her. So you see she's playing it—the game. But I reckon you don't know about the game yet, after all; so I'll tell you. It started this way." And Pollyanna, with her eyes on the shimmering beauty all about her, told of the little pair of crutches of long ago, which should have been a doll.

When the story was finished there was a long silence; then, a little abruptly the man got to his feet.

"Oh, are you going away NOW?" she asked in open disappointment.

"Yes, I'm going now." He smiled down at her a little queerly.

"But you're coming back sometime?"

He shook his head—but again he smiled.

"I hope not—and I believe not, little girl. You see, I've made a great discovery to-day. I thought I was down and out. I thought there was no place for me anywhere—now. But I've just discovered that I've got two eyes, two arms, and two legs. Now I'm going to use them—and I'm going to MAKE somebody understand that I know how to use them!"

The next moment he was gone.

"Why, what a funny man!" mused Pollyanna. "Still, he was nice—and he was different, too," she finished, rising to her feet and resuming her walk.

Pollyanna was now once more her usual cheerful self, and she stepped with the confident assurance of one who has no doubt. Had not the man said that this was a public park, and that she had as good a right as anybody to be there? She walked nearer to the pond and crossed the bridge to the starting-place of the little boats. For some time she watched the children happily, keeping a particularly sharp lookout for the possible black curls of Susie Smith. She would have liked to take a ride in the pretty boats, herself, but the sign said "Five cents" a trip, and she did not have any money with her. She smiled hopefully into the faces of several women, and twice she spoke tentatively. But no one spoke first to her, and those whom she addressed eyed her coldly, and made scant response.

After a time she turned her steps into still another path. Here she found a white-faced boy in a wheel chair. She would have spoken to him, but he was so absorbed in his book that she turned away after a moment's wistful gazing. Soon then she came upon a pretty, but sad-looking young girl sitting alone, staring at nothing, very much as the man had sat. With a contented little cry Pollyanna hurried forward.

"Oh, how do you do?" she beamed. "I'm so glad I found you! I've been hunting ever so long for you," she asserted, dropping herself down on the unoccupied end of the bench.

The pretty girl turned with a start, an eager look of expectancy in her eyes.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, falling back in plain disappointment. "I thought— Why, what do you mean?" she demanded aggrievedly. "I never set eyes on you before in my life."

"No, I didn't you, either," smiled Pollyanna; "but I've been hunting for you, just the same. That is, of course I didn't know you were going to be YOU exactly. It's just that I wanted to find some one that looked lonesome, and that didn't have anybody. Like me, you know. So many here to-day have got folks. See?"

"Yes, I see," nodded the girl, falling back into her old listlessness.

"But, poor little kid, it's too bad YOU should find it out—so soon."

"Find what out?"

"That the lonesomest place in all the world is in a crowd in a big city."

Pollyanna frowned and pondered.

"Is it? I don't see how it can be. I don't see how you can be lonesome when you've got folks all around you. Still—" she hesitated, and the frown deepened. "I WAS lonesome this afternoon, and there WERE folks all around me; only they didn't seem to—to think—or notice."

The pretty girl smiled bitterly.

"That's just it. They don't ever think—or notice, crowds don't."

"But some folks do. We can be glad some do," urged Pollyanna. "Now when I—"

"Oh, yes, some do," interrupted the other. As she spoke she shivered and looked fearfully down the path beyond Pollyanna. "Some notice—too much."

Pollyanna shrank back in dismay. Repeated rebuffs that afternoon had given her a new sensitiveness.

"Do you mean—me?" she stammered. "That you wished I hadn't—noticed—you?"

"No, no, kiddie! I meant—some one quite different from you. Some one that hadn't ought to notice. I was glad to have you speak, only—I thought at first it was some one from home."

"Oh, then you don't live here, either, any more than I do—I mean, for keeps."

"Oh, yes, I live here now," sighed the girl; "that is, if you can call it living—what I do."

"What do you do?" asked Pollyanna interestedly.

"Do? I'll tell you what I do," cried the other, with sudden bitterness. "From morning till night I sell fluffy laces and perky bows to girls that laugh and talk and KNOW each other. Then I go home to a little back room up three flights just big enough to hold a lumpy cot-bed, a washstand with a nicked pitcher, one rickety chair, and me. It's like a furnace in the summer and an ice box in the winter; but it's all the place I've got, and I'm supposed to stay in it—when I ain't workin'. But I've come out to-day. I ain't goin' to stay in that room, and I ain't goin' to go to any old library to read, neither. It's our last half-holiday this year—and an extra one, at that; and I'm going to have a good time—for once. I'm just as young, and I like to laugh and joke just as well as them girls I sell bows to all day. Well, to-day I'm going to laugh and joke."

Pollyanna smiled and nodded her approval.

"I'm glad you feel that way. I do, too. It's a lot more fun—to be happy, isn't it? Besides, the Bible tells us to;—rejoice and be glad, I mean. It tells us to eight hundred times. Probably you know about 'em, though—the rejoicing texts."

The pretty girl shook her head. A queer look came to her face.

"Well, no," she said dryly. "I can't say I WAS thinkin'—of the Bible."

"Weren't you? Well, maybe not; but, you see, MY father was a minister, and he—"

"A MINISTER?"

"Yes. Why, was yours, too?" cried Pollyanna, answering something she saw in the other's face.

"Y-yes." A faint color crept up to the girl's forehead.

"Oh, and has he gone like mine to be with God and the angels?"

The girl turned away her head.

"No. He's still living—back home," she answered, half under her breath.

"Oh, how glad you must be," sighed Pollyanna, enviously. "Sometimes I get to thinking, if only I could just SEE father once—but you do see your father, don't you?"

"Not often. You see, I'm down—here."

"But you CAN see him—and I can't, mine. He's gone to be with mother and the rest of us up in Heaven, and— Have you got a mother, too—an earth mother?"

"Y-yes." The girl stirred restlessly, and half moved as if to go.

"Oh, then you can see both of them," breathed Pollyanna, unutterable longing in her face. "Oh, how glad you must be! For there just isn't anybody, is there, that really CARES and notices quite so much as fathers and mothers. You see I know, for I had a father until I was eleven years old; but, for a mother, I had Ladies' Aiders for ever so long, till Aunt Polly took me and then Uncle Richard - he married my Aunt Polly, you know. Ladies' Aiders are lovely, but of course they aren't like mothers, or even Aunt Pollys; and—"

On and on Pollyanna talked. Pollyanna was in her element now. Pollyanna loved to talk. That there was anything strange or unwise or even unconventional in this intimate telling of her thoughts and her history to a total stranger on a London park bench did not once occur to Pollyanna. To Pollyanna all men, women, and children were friends, either known or unknown; and thus far she had found the unknown quite as delightful as the known, for with them there was always the excitement of mystery and adventure—while they were changing from the unknown to the known.

To this young girl at her side, therefore, Pollyanna talked unreservedly of her father, her Aunt Polly and Uncle Richard, their wedding, her home, and her journey to Beldingsville. She told of new friends and old friends, and of course she told of the game. Pollyanna almost always told everybody of the game, either sooner or later. It was, indeed, so much a part of her very self that she could hardly have helped telling of it.

As for the girl—she said little. She was not now sitting in her old listless attitude, however, and to her whole self had come a marked change. The flushed cheeks, frowning brow, troubled eyes, and nervously working fingers were plainly the signs of some inward struggle. From time to time she glanced apprehensively down the path beyond Pollyanna, and it was after such a glance that she clutched the little girl's arm.

"See here, kiddie, for just a minute don't you leave me. Do you hear? Stay right where you are? There's a man I know comin'; but no matter what he says, don't you pay no attention, and DON'T YOU GO. I'm goin' to stay with YOU. See?"

Before Pollyanna could more than gasp her wonderment and surprise, she found herself looking up into the face of a very handsome young gentleman, who had stopped before them.

"Oh, here you are," he smiled pleasantly, lifting his hat to Pollyanna's companion. "I'm afraid I'll have to begin with an apology—I'm a little late."

"It don't matter, sir," said the young girl, speaking hurriedly. "I—I've decided not to go."

The young man gave a light laugh.

"Oh, come, my clear, don't be hard on a chap because he's a little late!"

"It isn't that, really," defended the girl, a swift red flaming into her cheeks. "I mean—I'm not going."

"Nonsense!" The man stopped smiling. He spoke sharply. "You said yesterday you'd go."

"I know; but I've changed my mind. I told my little friend here—I'd stay with her."

"Oh, but if you'd rather go with this nice young gentleman," began Pollyanna, anxiously; but she fell back silenced at the look the girl gave her.

"I tell you I had NOT rather go. I'm not going."

"And, pray, why this sudden right-about face?" demanded the young man with an expression that made him suddenly look, to Pollyanna, not quite so handsome. "Yesterday you said—"

"I know I did," interrupted the girl, feverishly. "But I knew then that I hadn't ought to. Let's call it—that I know it even better now. That's all." And she turned away resolutely.

It was not all. The man spoke again, twice. He coaxed, then he sneered with a hateful look in his eyes. At last he said something very low and angry, which Pollyanna did not understand. The next moment he wheeled about and strode away.

The girl watched him tensely till he passed quite out of sight, then, relaxing, she laid a shaking hand on Pollyanna's arm.

"Thanks, kiddie. I reckon I owe you—more than you know. Good-by."

"But you aren't going away NOW!" bemoaned Pollyanna.

The girl sighed wearily.

"I got to. He might come back, and next time I might not be able to—" She clipped the words short and rose to her feet. For a moment she hesitated, then she choked bitterly: "You see, he's the kind that—notices too much, and that hadn't ought to notice—ME—at all!" With that she was gone.

"Why, what a funny lady," murmured Pollyanna, looking wistfully after the vanishing figure. "She was nice, but she was sort of different, too," she commented, rising to her feet and moving idly down the path.


	6. From Behind a Counter

Mrs. Carew was very angry. To have brought herself to the point where she was willing to take this lame boy into her home, and then to have the lad calmly refuse to come, was unbearable. Mrs. Carew was not in the habit of having her invitations ignored, or her wishes scorned. Furthermore, now that she could not have the boy, she was conscious of an almost frantic terror lest he were, after all, the real Jamie. She knew then that her true reason for wanting him had been—not because she cared for him, not even because she wished to help him and make him happy—but because she hoped, by taking him, that she would ease her own mind, and forever silence that awful eternal questioning on her part: "What if he WERE her own Jamie?"

It certainly had not helped matters any that the boy had divined her state of mind, and had given as the reason for his refusal that she "did not care." To be sure, Mrs. Carew now very proudly told herself that she did not indeed "care," that he was NOT her sister's boy, and that she would "forget all about it."

But she did not forget all about it. However insistently she might disclaim responsibility and relationship, just as insistently responsibility and relationship thrust themselves upon her in the shape of panicky doubts; and however resolutely she turned her thoughts to other matters, just so resolutely visions of a wistful-eyed boy in a poverty-stricken room loomed always before her.

Then, too, there was Pollyanna. Clearly Pollyanna was not herself at all. In a most unPollyanna-like spirit she moped about the house, finding apparently no interest anywhere.

"Oh, no, I'm not sick," she would answer, when remonstrated with, and questioned.

"But what IS the trouble?"

"Why, nothing. It—it's only that I was thinking of Jamie, you know,—how HE hasn't got all these beautiful things—carpets, and pictures, and curtains."

It was the same with her food. Pollyanna was actually losing her appetite; but here again she disclaimed sickness.

"Oh, no," she would sigh mournfully. "It's just that I don't seem hungry. Some way, just as soon as I begin to eat, I think of Jamie, and how HE doesn't have only old doughnuts and dry rolls; and then I—I don't want anything."

Mrs. Carew, spurred by a feeling that she herself only dimly understood, and recklessly determined to bring about some change in Pollyanna at all costs, ordered a huge tree, two dozen wreaths, and quantities of holly and Christmas baubles. For the first time in many years the house was aflame and aglitter with scarlet and tinsel. There was even to be a Christmas party, for Mrs. Carew had told Pollyanna to invite half a dozen of her schoolgirl friends for the tree on Christmas Eve.

But even here Mrs. Carew met with disappointment; for, though Pollyanna was always grateful, and at times interested and even excited, she still carried frequently a sober little face. And in the end the Christmas party was more of a sorrow than a joy; for the first glimpse of the glittering tree sent her into a storm of sobs.

"Why, Pollyanna!" ejaculated Mrs. Carew. "What in the world is the matter now?"

"N-n-nothing," wept Pollyanna. "It's only that it's so perfectly, perfectly beautiful that I just had to cry. I was thinking how Jamie would love to see it."

It was then that Mrs. Carew's patience snapped.

"'Jamie, Jamie, Jamie'!" she exclaimed. "Pollyanna, CAN'T you stop talking about that boy? You know perfectly well that it is not my fault that he is not here. I asked him to come here to live. Besides, where is that glad game of yours? I think it would be an excellent idea if you would play it on this."

"I AM playing it," quavered Pollyanna. "And that's what I don't understand. I never knew it to act so funny. Why, before, when I've been glad about things, I've been happy. But now, about Jamie—I'm so glad I've got carpets and pictures and nice things to eat, and that I can walk and run, and go to school, and all that; but the harder I'm glad for myself, the sorrier I am for him. I never knew the game to act so funny, and I don't know what ails it. Do you?"

But Mrs. Carew, with a despairing gesture, merely turned away without a word.

It was the day after Christmas that something so wonderful happened that Pollyanna, for a time, almost forgot Jamie. Mrs. Carew had taken her shopping, and it was while Mrs. Carew was trying to decide between a duchesse-lace and a point-lace collar, that Pollyanna chanced to spy farther down the counter a face that looked vaguely familiar. For a moment she regarded it frowningly; then, with a little cry, she ran down the aisle.

"Oh, it's you—it IS you!" she exclaimed joyously to a girl who was putting into the show case a tray of pink bows. "I'm so glad to see you!"

The girl behind the counter lifted her head and stared at Pollyanna in amazement. But almost immediately her dark, somber face lighted with a smile of glad recognition.

"Well, well, if it isn't my little Public Garden kiddie!" she ejaculated.

"Yes. I'm so glad you remembered," beamed Pollyanna. "But you never came again. I looked for you lots of times."

"I couldn't. I had to work. That was our last half-holiday, and—Fifty cents, madam," she broke off, in answer to a sweet-faced old lady's question as to the price of a black-and-white bow on the counter.

"Fifty cents? Hm-m!" The old lady fingered the bow, hesitated, then laid it down with a sigh. "Hm, yes; well, it's very pretty, I'm sure, my dear," she said, as she passed on.

Immediately behind her came two bright-faced girls who, with much giggling and bantering, picked out a jeweled creation of scarlet velvet, and a fairy-like structure of tulle and pink buds. As the girls turned chattering away Pollyanna drew an ecstatic sigh.

"Is this what you do all day? My, how glad you must be you chose this!"

"GLAD!"

"Yes. It must be such fun—such lots of folks, you know, and all different! And you can talk to 'em. You HAVE to talk to 'em—it's your business. I should love that. I think I'll do this when I grow up. It must be such fun to see what they all buy!"

"Fun! Glad!" bristled the girl behind the counter. "Well, child, I guess if you knew half—That's a dollar, madam," she interrupted herself hastily, in answer to a young woman's sharp question as to the price of a flaring yellow bow of beaded velvet in the show case.

"Well, I should think 'twas time you told me," snapped the young woman. "I had to ask you twice."

The girl behind the counter bit her lip.

"I didn't hear you, madam."

"I can't help that. It is your business TO hear. You are paid for it, aren't you? How much is that black one?"

"Fifty cents."

"And that blue one?"

"One dollar."

"No impudence, miss! You needn't be so short about it, or I shall report you. Let me see that tray of pink ones."

The salesgirl's lips opened, then closed in a thin, straight line. Obediently she reached into the show case and took out the tray of pink bows; but her eyes flashed, and her hands shook visibly as she set the tray down on the counter. The young woman whom she was serving picked up five bows, asked the price of four of them, then turned away with a brief:

"I see nothing I care for."

"Well," said the girl behind the counter, in a shaking voice, to the wide-eyed Pollyanna, "what do you think of my business now? Anything to be glad about there?"

Pollyanna giggled a little hysterically.

"My, wasn't she cross? But she was kind of funny, too—don't you think? Anyhow, you can be glad that—that they aren't ALL like HER, can't you?"

"I suppose so," said the girl, with a faint smile, "But I can tell you right now, kiddie, that glad game of yours you was tellin' me about that day in the Garden may be all very well for you; but—" Once more she stopped with a tired: "Fifty cents, madam," in answer to a question from the other side of the counter.

"Are you as lonesome as ever?" asked Pollyanna wistfully, when the salesgirl was at liberty again.

"Well, I can't say I've given more'n five parties, nor been to more'n seven, since I saw you," replied the girl so bitterly that Pollyanna detected the sarcasm.

"Oh, but you did something nice Christmas, didn't you?"

"Oh, yes. I stayed in bed all day with my feet done up in rags and read four newspapers and one magazine. Then at night I hobbled out to a restaurant where I had to blow in thirty-five cents for chicken pie instead of a quarter."

"But what ailed your feet?"

"Blistered. Standin' on 'em—Christmas rush."

"Oh!" shuddered Pollyanna, sympathetically. "And you didn't have any tree, or party, or anything?" she cried, distressed and shocked.

"Well, hardly!"

"O dear! How I wish you could have seen mine!" sighed the little girl. "It was just lovely, and—But, oh, say!" she exclaimed joyously. "You can see it, after all. It isn't gone yet. Now, can't you come out to-night, or to-morrow night, and—"

"PollyANNA!" interrupted Mrs. Carew in her chilliest accents. "What in the world does this mean? Where have you been? I have looked everywhere for you. I even went 'way back to the suit department."

Pollyanna turned with a happy little cry.

"Oh, Mrs. Carew, I'm so glad you've come," she rejoiced. "This is—well, I don't know her name yet, but I know HER, so it's all right. I met her in the Public Garden ever so long ago. And she's lonesome, and doesn't know anybody. And her father was a minister like mine, only he's alive. And she didn't have any Christmas tree only blistered feet and chicken pie; and I want her to see mine, you know—the tree, I mean," plunged on Pollyanna, breathlessly. "I've asked her to come out to-night, or to-morrow night. And you'll let me have it all lighted up again, won't you?"

"Well, really, Pollyanna," began Mrs. Carew, in cold disapproval. But the girl behind the counter interrupted with a voice quite as cold, and even more disapproving.

"Don't worry, madam. I've no notion of goin'."

"Oh, but PLEASE," begged Pollyanna. "You don't know how I want you, and—"

"I notice the lady ain't doin' any askin'," interrupted the salesgirl, a little maliciously.

Mrs. Carew flushed an angry red, and turned as if to go; but Pollyanna caught her arm and held it, talking meanwhile almost frenziedly to the girl behind the counter, who happened, at the moment, to be free from customers.

"Oh, but she will, she will," Pollyanna was saying. "She wants you to come—I know she does. Why, you don't know how good she is, and how much money she gives to—to charitable 'sociations and everything."

"PollyANNA!" remonstrated Mrs. Carew, sharply. Once more she would have gone, but this time she was held spellbound by the ringing scorn in the low, tense voice of the salesgirl.

"Oh, yes, I know! There's lots of 'em that'll give to RESCUE work. There's always plenty of helpin' hands stretched out to them that has gone wrong. And that's all right. I ain't findin' no fault with that. Only sometimes I wonder there don't some of 'em think of helpin' the girls BEFORE they go wrong. Why don't they give GOOD girls pretty homes with books and pictures and soft carpets and music, and somebody 'round 'em to care? Maybe then there wouldn't be so many—Good heavens, what am I sayin'?" she broke off, under her breath. Then, with the old weariness, she turned to a young woman who had stopped before her and picked up a blue bow.

"That's fifty cents, madam," Mrs. Carew heard, as she hurried Pollyanna away.

\------------------------------

London was certianly a new experience for Pollyanna and she was doing her best to be glad of it, but she missed her Aunt and Uncle and their cosy life in Beldingsville. She had a letter and gift from them for Christmas recently from Germany, telling her about the cosy little cottage they were staying in and they even included a photograph, her uncle’s arms wrapped around her aunt as they smiled in the snow. They wrote that it would soon be time for them to come and take her home.


	7. Jimmy and the Green-Eyed Monster

This time Beldingsville did not literally welcome Pollyanna home with brass bands and bunting—perhaps because the hour of her expected arrival was known to but few of the townspeople. But there certainly was no lack of joyful greetings on the part of everybody from the moment she stepped from the railway train with her Aunt Polly and Dr. Chilton. It was a happy sight for the people of the town - the cheerful little girl jumping off the train gretting her old friends, followed by her smiling Aunt and Uncle, hand in hand. 

Nor did Pollyanna lose any time in starting on a round of fly-away minute calls on all her old friends. Indeed, for the next few days, according to Nancy, "There wasn't no putting of your finger on her anywheres, for by the time you'd got your finger down she wa'n't there."

And always, everywhere she went, Pollyanna met the question: "Well, how did you like London?" Perhaps to no one did she answer this more fully than she did to Mr. Pendleton. As was usually the case when this question was put to her, she began her reply with a troubled frown.

"Oh, I liked it—I just loved it—some of it."

"But not all of it?" smiled Mr. Pendleton.

"No. There's parts of it—Oh, I was glad to be there," she explained hastily. "I had a perfectly lovely time, and lots of things were so queer and different, you know—like eating dinner at night instead of noons, when you ought to eat it. But everybody was so good to me, and I saw such a lot of wonderful things—Bunker Hill, and the Public Garden, and the Seeing London autos, and miles of pictures and statues and store-windows and streets that didn't have any end. And folks. I never saw such a lot of folks."

"Well, I'm sure—I thought you liked folks," commented the man.

"I do." Pollyanna frowned again and pondered. "But what's the use of such a lot of them if you don't know 'em? And Mrs. Carew wouldn't let me. She didn't know 'em herself. She said folks didn't, down there."

There was a slight pause, then, with a sigh, Pollyanna resumed.

"I reckon maybe that's the part I don't like the most—that folks don't know each other. It would be such a lot nicer if they did! Why, just think, Mr. Pendleton, there are lots of folks that live on dirty, narrow streets, and don't even have beans and fish balls to eat, nor things even as good as missionary barrels to wear. Then there are other folks—Mrs. Carew, and a whole lot like her—that live in perfectly beautiful houses, and have more things to eat and wear than they know what to do with. Now if THOSE folks only knew the other folks—" But Mr. Pendleton interrupted with a laugh.

"My dear child, did it ever occur to you that these people don't CARE to know each other?" he asked quizzically.

"Oh, but some of them do," maintained Pollyanna, in eager defense. "Now there's Sadie Dean—she sells bows, lovely bows in a big store—she WANTS to know people; and I introduced her to Mrs. Carew, and we had her up to the house, and we had Jamie and lots of others there, too; and she was SO glad to know them! And that's what made me think that if only a lot of Mrs. Carew's kind could know the other kind—but of course I couldn't do the introducing. I didn't know many of them myself, anyway. But if they COULD know each other, so that the rich people could give the poor people part of their money—"

But again Mr. Pendleton interrupted with a laugh.

"Oh, Pollyanna, Pollyanna," he chuckled; "I'm afraid you're getting into pretty deep water. You'll be a rabid little socialist before you know it."

"A—what?" questioned the little girl, dubiously. "I—I don't think I know what a socialist is. But I know what being SOCIABLE is—and I like folks that are that. If it's anything like that, I don't mind being one, a mite. I'd like to be one."

"I don't doubt it, Pollyanna," smiled the man. "But when it comes to this scheme of yours for the wholesale distribution of wealth—you've got a problem on your hands that you might have difficulty with."

Pollyanna drew a long sigh.

"I know," she nodded. "That's the way Mrs. Carew talked. She says I don't understand; that 'twould—er—pauperize her and be indiscriminate and pernicious, and—Well, it was SOMETHING like that, anyway," bridled the little girl, aggrievedly, as the man began to laugh. "And, anyway, I DON'T understand why some folks should have such a lot, and other folks shouldn't have anything; and I DON'T like it. And if I ever have a lot I shall just give some of it to folks who don't have any, even if it does make me pauperized and pernicious, and—" But Mr. Pendleton was laughing so hard now that Pollyanna, after a moment's struggle, surrendered and laughed with him.

"Well, anyway," she reiterated, when she had caught her breath, "I don't understand it, all the same."

"No, dear, I'm afraid you don't," agreed the man, growing suddenly very grave and tender-eyed; "nor any of the rest of us, for that matter. But, tell me," he added, after a minute, "who is this Jamie you've been talking so much about since you came?"

And Pollyanna told him.

In talking of Jamie, Pollyanna lost her worried, baffled look. Pollyanna loved to talk of Jamie. Here was something she understood. Here was no problem that had to deal with big, fearsome-sounding words. Besides, in this particular instance—would not Mr. Pendleton be especially interested in Mrs. Carew's taking the boy into her home, for who better than himself could understand the need of a child's presence?

For that matter, Pollyanna talked to everybody about Jamie. She assumed that everybody would be as interested as she herself was. On most occasions she was not disappointed in the interest shown; but one day she met with a surprise. It came through Jimmy Pendleton.

"Say, look a-here," he demanded one afternoon, irritably. "Wasn't there ANYBODY else down to London but just that everlasting 'Jamie'?"

"Why, Jimmy Bean, what do you mean?" cried Pollyanna.

The boy lifted his chin a little.

"I'm not Jimmy Bean. I'm Jimmy Pendleton. And I mean that I should think, from your talk, that there wasn't ANYBODY down to London but just that loony boy who calls them birds and squirrels 'Lady Lancelot,' and all that tommyrot."

"Why, Jimmy Be—Pendleton!" gasped Pollyanna. Then, with some spirit: "Jamie isn't loony! He is a very nice boy. And he knows a lot—books and stories! Why, he can MAKE stories right out of his own head! Besides, it isn't 'Lady Lancelot,'—it's 'Sir Lancelot.' If you knew half as much as he does you'd know that, too!" she finished, with flashing eyes.

Jimmy Pendleton flushed miserably and looked utterly wretched. Growing more and more jealous moment by moment, still doggedly he held his ground.

"Well, anyhow," he scoffed, "I don't think much of his name. 'Jamie'! Humph!—sounds sissy! And I know somebody else that said so, too."

"Who was it?"

There was no answer.

"WHO WAS IT?" demanded Pollyanna, more peremptorily.

"Dad." The boy's voice was sullen.

"Your—dad?" repeated Pollyanna, in amazement. "Why, how could he know Jamie?"

"He didn't. 'Twasn't about that Jamie. 'Twas about me." The boy still spoke sullenly, with his eyes turned away. Yet there was a curious softness in his voice that was always noticeable whenever he spoke of his father.

"YOU!"

"Yes. 'Twas just a little while before he died. We stopped 'most a week with a farmer. Dad helped about the hayin'—and I did, too, some. The farmer's wife was awful good to me, and pretty quick she was callin' me 'Jamie.' I don't know why, but she just did. And one day father heard her. He got awful mad—so mad that I remembered it always—what he said. He said 'Jamie' wasn't no sort of a name for a boy, and that no son of his should ever be called it. He said 'twas a sissy name, and he hated it. 'Seems so I never saw him so mad as he was that night. He wouldn't even stay to finish the work, but him and me took to the road again that night. I was kind of sorry, 'cause I liked her—the farmer's wife, I mean. She was good to me."

Pollyanna nodded, all sympathy and interest. It was not often that Jimmy said much of that mysterious past life of his, before she had known him.

"And what happened next?" she prompted. Pollyanna had, for the moment, forgotten all about the original subject of the controversy—the name "Jamie" that was dubbed "sissy."

The boy sighed.

"We just went on till we found another place. And 'twas there dad—died. Then they put me in the 'sylum."

"And then you ran away and I found you that day, down by Mrs. Snow's," exulted Pollyanna, softly. "And I've known you ever since."

"Oh, yes—and you've known me ever since," repeated Jimmy—but in a far different voice: Jimmy had suddenly come back to the present, and to his grievance. "But, then, I ain't 'JAMIE,' you know," he finished with scornful emphasis, as he turned loftily away, leaving a distressed, bewildered Pollyanna behind him.

"Well, anyway, I can be glad he doesn't always act like this," sighed the little girl, as she mournfully watched the sturdy, boyish figure with its disagreeable, amazing swagger.

\---------------

Pollyanna soon felt better after talking with her Uncle that evening. He really was like a father to her now and she was glad to be back home. Her Aunt entered the sitting room as they were finishing their conversation. "He's just jealous," he smiled. "He'll get over it." He gave her shoulder a squeeze as she got up, and she bade them both goodnight. Dr Chilton kissed his wife in greeting and put an arm around them both as Pollyanna grinned up as she looked up at them. "We missed you," he told Pollyanna. "I'm glad you're back."

"We did," Aunt Polly smiled. "I think....I think perhaps we might take you with us next time," she said, glancing at her husband. "How would you like that?"

Pollyanna decided that she would like that very much and went upstairs to bed, leaving Aunt Polly and Dr Chilton to themselves in the sitting room. He drew his wife into his arms as they sat down on the couch and she turned her head and kissed him on the lips, a warm, gentle, open-mouthed kiss.

"Mmmmm....Polly..." he murmured, his eyes twinkling, kissing her back and pulling her over him, holding her against him as he leaned back into the cushions, his lips still against hers. For a few moments, both were lost in the passion of the kiss, Aunt Polly's hands caressing Dr Chilton's face, pulling him closer to her. "Isn't....mmmm...Nancy around here somewhere?" Aunt Polly asked, somewhat breathlessly, between kisses. Dr Chilton's mouth covered hers again in another passionate kiss as his hands caressed her face. He had completely forgotten about asking her about taking Pollyanna with them to Germany. His eyes twinkled as they broke apart. "Well, my love," her husband replied with a smile and raised eyebrows, resting his forehead gently on hers as he wrapped his arms around her more tightly, caressing the curves of her waist and hips. "She's gone home...so we're alone". "Oooh," Aunt Polly laughed softly as she relaxed further into her husband's embrace, her arms wrapping around him as his lips and tongue met hers again. 

"I'm so happy," she told him later, drawing back only slightly from his lips, as they lay together on the couch, his body now resting half over hers, their clothes somewhat dishevelled. "Being back home - here, with you." 

"So am I," smiled her husband, caressing her cheek, his eyes closing as he kissed her again. "So am I."


	8. Aunt Polly Takes Alarm

Pollyanna had been at home about a week when the letter from Della Wetherby came to Mrs. Chilton. She read it to her husband as they sat together on the couch in the sitting room that evening. It was getting late and Pollyanna had gone to bed. 

"I wish I could make you see what your little niece has done for my sister," wrote Miss Wetherby; "but I'm afraid I can't. You would have to know what she was before. You did see her, to be sure, and perhaps you saw something of the hush and gloom in which she has shrouded herself for so many years. But you can have no conception of her bitterness of heart, her lack of aim and interest, her insistence upon eternal mourning.

"Then came Pollyanna. Probably I didn't tell you, but my sister regretted her promise to take the child, almost the minute it was given; and she made the stern stipulation that the moment Pollyanna began to preach, back she should come to me. Well, she hasn't preached—at least, my sister says she hasn't; and my sister ought to know. And yet—well, just let me tell you what I found when I went to see her yesterday. Perhaps nothing else could give you a better idea of what that wonderful little Pollyanna of yours has accomplished.

"To begin with, as I approached the house, I saw that nearly all the shades were up: they used to be down—'way down to the sill. The minute I stepped into the hall I heard music—Parsifal. The drawing-rooms were open, and the air was sweet with roses.

"'Mrs. Carew and Master Jamie are in the music-room,' said the maid. And there I found them—my sister, and the youth she has taken into her home, listening to one of those modern contrivances that can hold an entire opera company, including the orchestra.

"The boy was in a wheel chair. He was pale, but plainly beatifically happy. My sister looked ten years younger. Her usually colorless cheeks showed a faint pink, and her eyes glowed and sparkled. A little later, after I had talked a few minutes with the boy, my sister and I went up-stairs to her own rooms; and there she talked to me—of Jamie. Not of the old Jamie, as she used to, with tear-wet eyes and hopeless sighs, but of the new Jamie—and there were no sighs nor tears now. There was, instead, the eagerness of enthusiastic interest.

"'Della, he's wonderful,' she began. 'Everything that is best in music, art, and literature seems to appeal to him in a perfectly marvelous fashion, only, of course, he needs development and training. That's what I'm going to see that he gets. A tutor is coming to-morrow. Of course his language is something awful; at the same time, he has read so many good books that his vocabulary is quite amazing—and you should hear the stories he can reel off! Of course in general education he is very deficient; but he's eager to learn, so that will soon be remedied. He loves music, and I shall give him what training in that he wishes. I have already put in a stock of carefully selected records. I wish you could have seen his face when he first heard that Holy Grail music. He knows all about King Arthur and his Round Table, and he prattles of knights and lords and ladies as you and I do of the members of our own family—only sometimes I don't know whether his Sir Lancelot means the ancient knight or a squirrel in the Public Garden. And, Della, I believe he can be made to walk. I'm going to have Dr. Ames see him, anyway, and—'

"And so on and on she talked, while I sat amazed and tongue-tied, but, oh, so happy! I tell you all this, dear Mrs. Chilton, so you can see for yourself how interested she is, how eagerly she is going to watch this boy's growth and development, and how, in spite of herself, it is all going to change her attitude toward life. She CAN'T do what she is doing for this boy, Jamie, and not do for herself at the same time. Never again, I believe, will she be the soured, morose woman she was before. And it's all because of Pollyanna.

"Pollyanna! Dear child—and the best part of it is, she is so unconscious of the whole thing. I don't believe even my sister yet quite realizes what is taking place within her own heart and life, and certainly Pollyanna doesn't—least of all does she realize the part she played in the change.

"And now, dear Mrs. Chilton, how can I thank you? I know I can't; so I'm not even going to try. Yet in your heart I believe you know how grateful I am to you, your husband and Pollyanna.

"DELLA WETHERBY."

"Well, it seems to have worked a cure, all right," smiled Dr. Chilton, when his wife had finished reading the letter to him.

To his surprise his wife looked troubled.

"Why, Polly, what's the matter?" Her husband asked, her expression bringing a concerned frown to his brow. He took her hand. "Aren't you glad that—that the medicine worked?"

Mrs. Chilton leaned back against the couch and entwined her fingers with her husband's.

She sighed and gave a somewhat wry laugh. "Of COURSE I'm glad that this misguided woman has forsaken the error of her ways and found that she can be of use to some one. And of course I'm glad that Pollyanna did it. But I am not glad to have that child continually spoken of as if she were a—a bottle of medicine, or a 'cure.' Do you see?"

Her husband looked surprised. "Nonsense! After all, where's the harm? I've called Pollyanna a tonic ever since I knew her."

"Richard...she is growing older every day. Do you want to spoil her? Thus far she has been utterly unconscious of her extraordinary power. And therein lies the secret of her success. The minute she CONSCIOUSLY sets herself to reform somebody, you know as well as I do that she will be simply impossible. Consequently, Heaven forbid that she ever gets it into her head that she's anything like a cure-all for poor, sick, suffering humanity."

"I wouldn't worry," laughed the doctor.

"But I do worry."

Dr Chilton nodded and moved closer to his wife. 

"I know," he told her softly. "But, Polly, think of what she's done," he argued. "Think of Mrs. Snow and John Pendleton, and quantities of others—why, they're not the same people at all that they used to be, any more than Mrs. Carew is. And Pollyanna did do it—bless her heart!"

His voice lowered slightly, his eyes meeting Aunt Polly's. "And what she did for us." 

"I know she did," nodded Mrs Chilton, emphatically, the troubled look still hovering over her face, still holding Dr Chilton's hand. "But I don't want Pollyanna to know she did it! Oh, of course she knows it, in a way. She knows she taught them to play the glad game with her, and that they are lots happier in consequence. And that's all right. It's a game—HER game, and they're playing it together. To you I will admit that Pollyanna has preached to us one of the most powerful sermons I ever heard; but the minute SHE knows it—well, I don't want her to."

Her husband nodded, his eyes on his wife's face. 

"And right now let me tell you that I've decided that we should go to Germany. Of course I know how much you wanted you to go and I...I wouldn't want to be here without you, but...I was worried about leaving Pollyanna—and I don't think we should leave her now. I do think we should take her with us."

Dr Chilton's eyes brightened. "Take her with us? Wonderful! We are a family now and I wouldn't want to just leave her in a school here."

Aunt Polly smiled, sat up a little straighter and looked at him. "I should be glad to plan to stay a few years too, just as you said you'd like to. I think we should get Pollyanna away, quite away from Beldingsville for a while. I'd like to keep her sweet and unspoiled, if we can. And she shall not get silly notions into her head if I can help myself." 

Her eyes widened and she said quite empathetically. "Richard, do we want that child made an insufferable little prig?"

"We certainly don't," laughed the doctor, and he pulled her close to him and kissed the side of her forehead. "But, for that matter, I don't believe anything or anybody could make her so. However, this Germany idea suits me to a T! You know I didn't want to come away when we did, if it hadn't been for Pollyanna, although I was glad to for her sake. And I'd like to stay too —for a little practice, as well as study."

"Well," Aunt Polly smiled at him and gave a satisfied sigh, squeezing his hand. "Then that's settled."

\--------------

Later that evening, in their bed, Dr Chilton and Aunt Polly lay in each other's arms. "I'm so happy," Dr Chilton murmurmed, echoing his wife's words from a week earlier. He was so looking forward to taking her and Pollyanna to Germany. His wife smiled at him. "I'm always happy with you," she told him, pressing her lips to his. He ran his hands through her soft brown curls. "As long as we're together," he murmered, as his lips met hers again. 


	9. When Pollyanna was Expected

ALL Beldingsville was fairly aquiver with excitement. Not since Pollyanna Whittier came home from the Sanatorium, walking, had there been such a chatter of talk over back-yard fences and on every street corner. To-day, too, the center of interest was Pollyanna. Once again Pollyanna was coming home-but so different a Pollyanna, and so different a homecoming! 

Pollyanna was twenty now. For six years she had spent her winters in Germany, her summers leisurely traveling with Dr. Chilton and his wife. Only once during that time had they all been in Beldingsville, and then it was for but a short four weeks the summer Pollyanna was sixteen. Now she was coming home-to stay, report said; she and her Aunt Polly. 

The doctor would not be with them. Six months before, the town had been shocked and saddened by the news that the doctor had been taken very ill suddenly and remained at a clinic in Germany. Polly and her niece had been told to return home. Beldingsville had expected then that Mrs Chilton and Pollyanna would return at once to the old home. But they had not come. Instead had come word that Polly and her niece would remain abroad for a time. The report said that, in entirely new surroundings, Mrs Chilton was trying to seek distraction from her worry and distress. 

Very soon, however, vague rumors, and rumors not so vague, began to float through the town that, financially, all was not well with Mrs Polly Chilton. Certain railroad stocks, in which it was known that the Harrington estate had been heavily interested, wavered uncertainly, then tumbled into ruin and disaster. Other investments, according to report, were in a most precarious condition. From the doctor's estate, should he die, little could be expected as he was not a rich man. Beldingsville was not surprised, therefore, when, not quite six months after word of the doctor’s illness, word came that Mrs. Chilton and Pollyanna were coming home. 

Once more the old Harrington homestead, so long closed and silent, showed up-flung windows and wide-open doors. Once more Nancy-now Mrs. Timothy Durgin-swept and scrubbed and dusted until the old place shone in spotless order. 

"No, I hain't had no instructions ter do it; I hain't, I hain't," Nancy explained to curious friends and neighbors who halted at the gate, or came more boldly to the doorways. " Mother Durgin's had the key, 'course, and has come in regerler to air up and see that things was all right; and Mrs Chilton just wrote and said she and Miss Pollyanna was comin' this week Friday, and ter please see that the rooms and sheets was aired, and ter leave the key under the side-door mat on that day. 

"Under the mat, indeed! just as if I'd leave them two poor things ter come into this house alone, and all forlorn like that-and me only a mile away, a-sittin' in my own parlor like as if I was a fine lady an' hadn't no heart at all, at all! just as if the poor things hadn't enough ter stand without that a-comin' into this house an' the doctor so ill-bless his kind heart -an' maybe never comin' back. An' no money, too. Did ye hear about that? An' ain't it a shame, a shame! Think of Mrs Chilton-bein' poor! My stars and stockings, I can't sense it-I can't, I can't! " 

Perhaps to no one did Nancy speak so interestedly as she did to a tall, good-looking young fellow with peculiarly frank eyes and a particularly winning smile, who cantered up to the side door on a mettlesome thoroughbred at ten o'clock that Thursday morning. At the same time, to no one did she talk with so much evident embarrassment, so far as the manner of address was concerned; for her tongue stumbled and blundered out a " Master Jimmy-er-Mr. Bean-I mean, Mr. Pendleton, Master Jimmy! " with a nervous precipitation that sent the young man himself into a merry peal of laughter. 

"Never mind, Nancy! Let it go at whatever comes handiest," he chuckled. "I've found out what I wanted to know: Mrs Chilton and her niece really are expected to-morrow." 

"Yes, sir, they be, sir," courtesied Nancy, more's the pity! Not but that I shall be glad enough ter see 'em, you understand, but it's the way they're a-comin'." 

"Yes, I know. I understand," nodded the youth, gravely, his eyes sweeping the fine old house before him. "Well, I suppose that part can't be helped. But I'm glad you're doing-just what you are doing. That will help a whole lot," he finished with a bright smile, as he wheeled about and rode rapidly down the driveway. 

Back on the steps Nancy wagged her head wisely. 

"I ain't surprised, Master Jimmy," she declared aloud, her admiring eyes following the handsome figures of horse and man. "I ain't surprised that you ain't lettin' no grass grow under your feet 'bout inquirin' for Miss Pollyanna. I said long ago 'twould come sometime, an' it's bound to-what with your growin' so handsome and tall. An' I hope 'twill; I do, I do. It'll be just like a book, what with her a-findin' you an' gettin' you into that grand home with Mr. Pendleton. My, but who'd ever take you now for that little Jimmy Bean that used to be! I never did see such a change in anybody-I didn't, I didn't! "she answered, with one last look at the rapidly disappearing figures far down the road. 

Something of the same thought must have been in the mind of John Pendleton some time later that same morning, for, from the veranda of his big gray house on Pendleton Hill, John Pendleton was watching the rapid approach of that same horse and rider; and in his eyes was an expression very like the one that had been in Mrs Nancy Durgin's. On his lips, too, was an admiring "Jove! what a handsome pair!” as the two dashed by on the way to the stable. 

Five minutes later the youth came around the corner of the house and slowly ascended the veranda steps. 

 "Well, my boy, is it true? Are they coming, asked the man, with visible eagerness. 

 "Yes." 

"When? 

"To-morrow." The young fellow dropped himself into a chair. 

At the crisp terseness of the answer, John Pendleton frowned. He threw a quick look into the young man's face. For a moment he hesitated; then, a little abruptly, he asked: 

"Why, son, what's the matter? " 

"Matter? Nothing, sir." 

"Nonsense! I know better. You left here an hour ago so eager to be off that wild horses could not have held you. Now you sit humped up in that chair and look as if wild horses couldn't drag you out of it. If I didn't know better I'd think you weren't glad that our friends are coming." 

He paused, evidently for a reply. But he did not get it. 

"Why, Jim, aren't you glad they're coming? " 

The young fellow laughed and stirred restlessly. 

"Why, yes, of, course." 

"Humph! You act like it." 

The youth laughed again. A boyish red flamed into his face. 

"Well, it's only that I was thinking-of Pollyanna." 

"Pollyanna! Why, man alive, you've done nothing but prattle of Pollyanna ever since you came home from London and found she was expected. I thought you were dying to see Pollyanna." 

The other leaned forward with curious intentness. 

"That's exactly it! See? You said it a minute ago. It's just as if yesterday wild horses couldn't keep me from seeing Pollyanna; and now, to-day, when I know she's coming-they couldn't drag me to see her." 

"Why, Jim!" At the shocked incredulity on John Pendleton's face, the younger man fell back in his chair with an embarrassed laugh. 

"Yes, I know. It sounds nutty, and I don't expect I can make you understand. But, somehow, I don’t think-I ever wanted Pollyanna to grow up. She was such a dear, just as she was. I like to think of her as I saw her last, before she went with her Uncle and Aunt to Germany, her earnest, freckled little face, her yellow pigtails, her tearful: 'Oh, yes, I'm glad I'm going; but I think I shall be a little gladder when I come back.' That's the last time I saw her. You know we were in Egypt that time they were here four years ago." 

"I know. I see exactly what you mean, too. I think I felt the same way-till I saw her last winter in Rome." 

The other turned eagerly. 

"Sure enough, you have seen her! Tell me about her." 

A shrewd twinkle came into John Pendleton's eyes. 

"Oh, but I thought you didn't want to know Pollyanna-grown up." 

With a grimace the young fellow tossed this aside. "Is she pretty?”

"Oh, ye young men! " shrugged John Pendleton, in mock despair. "Always the first question-' Is she pretty? '!”

"Well, is she?" insisted the youth. 

"I'll let you judge for yourself. If you-On second thoughts, though, I believe I won't. You might be too disappointed. Pollyanna isn't pretty, so far as regular features, curls, and dimples go. In fact, to my certain knowledge the great cross in Pollyanna's life thus far is that she is so sure she isn't pretty. Long ago she told me that dark curls, like her aunt’s, were one of the things she was going to have when she got to Heaven; and last year in Rome she said something else. It wasn't much, perhaps, so far as words went, but I detected the longing beneath. She said she did wish that sometime someone would write a novel with a heroine who had straight hair and a freckle on her nose; but that she supposed she ought to be glad girls in books didn't have to have them." 

"That sounds like the old Pollyanna." 

"Oh, you'll still find her-Pollyanna," smiled the man, quizzically. "Besides, I think she's pretty. Her eyes are lovely. She is the picture of health. She carries herself with all the joyous springiness of youth, and her whole face lights up so wonderfully when she talks that you quite forget whether her features are regular or not."  
     
"Does she still-play the game?" 

John Pendleton smiled fondly. 

"I imagine she plays it, but she doesn't say much about it now, I fancy. Anyhow, she didn't to me, the two or three times I saw her." 

There was a short silence; then, a little slowly, young Pendleton said: "I think that was one of the things that was worrying me. That game has been so much to so many people. It has meant so much everywhere, all through the town! I couldn't bear to think of her giving it up and not playing it. At the same time I couldn't fancy a grown-up Pollyanna perpetually admonishing people to be glad for something. Someway, I-well, as I said, I-I just didn't want Pollyanna to grow up, anyhow." 

"Well, I wouldn't worry," shrugged the elder man, with a peculiar smile. "Always, with Pollyanna, you know, it was the 'clearing-up shower,' both literally and figuratively; and I think you'll find she lives up to the same principle now-though perhaps not quite in the same way. Poor child, I fear she'll need some kind of game to make existence endurable, for a while, at least." 

'Do you mean because Mrs Chilton has lost her money? Are they so very poor, then?" 

"I suspect they are. In fact, they are in rather bad shape, so far as money matters go, as I happen to know. Mrs Chilton's own fortune has shrunk unbelievably, and Richard’s never had a lot of money. Richard could never say no when his help was needed, and some of the dead beats in town knew it and imposed on him accordingly. Besides, he expected great things when he completed this special work in Germany. Naturally he supposes his wife and Pollyanna are more than amply provided for through the Harrington estate; so he has no worry in that direction. Not that he ever really cared excessively for money – he was always just happy to be with Polly." 

“Hmm," muttered Jimmy, with a sigh. "Yes, he was…and he's such a nice man too. Too bad, too bad! " 

"But that isn't all. It was about two months after Richard was taken ill that I saw Mrs Chilton and Pollyanna in Rome, and Mrs Chilton then was in a terrible state. In addition to her worry at his illness, she had just begun to get an inkling of the trouble with her finances, and she was nearly frantic. She refused to come home. She declared she wanted to stay with her husband and never wanted to see Beldingsville, or anybody in it, again, but the doctors at the clinic would not allow it. You see, she has always been a rather proud woman, and it was all affecting her in a rather curious way. She resented keenly, the fact that they must now know that she was poor and possibly widowed in the future. In short, she had worked herself into an utterly wretched state, as unreasonable as it was terrible. Richard may yet recover - in fact I believe he will, although Polly is probably having a hard time believing that. And such a change in her too – you know how happy she was since she and Richard got married.”

Jimmy nodded. He did know. He knew something of their love story, too, having heard from Nancy and Pollyanna herself. He remembered Mrs Chilton when he first knew her, how he hadn't liked her much at all. He'd actually been somewhat afraid of her. However, happiness obviously agreed with her. Her husband clearly adored her and they had been happily married for several years now. Their marriage had brought something out in her; her humour, a twinkle - and he really rather liked her now. Perhaps it was also Dr Chilton's warm, easy manner that the whole town loved him for. 

“Poor little Pollyanna!” Mr Pendelton continued. 

"The pity of it!-to think of that happening to Pollyanna! " exclaimed the young man, in a voice, that was not quite steady. 

"Yes; and you can see all is not right by the way they are coming to-day-so quietly, with not a word to anybody. That was probably Mrs Chilton. She didn't want to be met by anybody. I understand she wrote to no one but her Old Tom's wife, Mrs. Durgin, who had the keys." 

"Yes, so Nancy told me-good old soul! She'd got the whole house open, and had contrived somehow to make it look as if it wasn't a tomb of dead hopes and lost pleasures. Of course the grounds looked fairly well, for Old Tom has kept them up, after a fashion. But it made my heart ache-the whole thing." 

There was a long silence, then, curtly, John Pendleton suggested: “They ought to be met." 

 "They will be met." 

"Are you going to the station? I am." 

"Then you know what train they're coming on."

" Oh, no. Neither does Nancy." Then how will you manage?" I'm going to begin in the morning and go to every train till they come," laughed the young man, a bit grimly. "Timothy's going, too, with the family carriage. After all, there aren't many trains, anyway, that they can come on, you know." 

"Hm-m, I know," said John Pendleton. " Jim, I admire your nerve, but not your judgment. I'm glad you're going to follow your nerve and not your judgment, however-and I wish you good luck." 

"Thank you, sir," smiled the young man dolefully. 

"I need 'em-your good wishes-all right, all right, as Nancy says."


	10. When Pollyanna Came

As the train neared Beldingsville, Pollyanna. watched her aunt anxiously. All day Mrs. Chilton had been growing more and more restless, more and more gloomy; and Pollyanna was fearful of the time when the familiar home station should be reached. 

   As Pollyanna looked at her aunt, her heart ached. She was thinking that she would not have believed it possible that anyone could have changed so greatly in six short months, since her husband had been taken ill. Though still a beautiful woman, the lustre had gone from Mrs Chilton's eyes, the warm flush from her cheeks, and she had grown thin and pale. Although Pollyanna had convinced her to wear her hair with her pretty brown curls around her face, the smile had gone from her lips. The softness and sweetness that seemed to have come to her with Dr Chilton’s love and their marriage had started to drop from her like a cloak, leaving something of the old hardness and sourness that had been hers when she was Miss Polly Harrington, unloved, and unloving. 

She wished her kind and affectionate Uncle were there with them - sitting beside her Aunt, her eyes shining at she looked at him, and his hand holding hers. She too was afraid he may not return, as his illness was very serious, but she gulped and pushed the thought from her mind.

"Pollyanna!" Mrs. Chilton's voice was incisive. 

Pollyanna started guiltily. She had an uncomfortable feeling that her aunt might have read her thoughts.  
"Yes, auntie." 

"Where is that black bag-the little one?" 

"Right here." 

"I wish you'd get out my black hat. We're nearly there." 

"But it's so hot and thick, auntie! You look ever so much prettier in the white one!” 

"Pollyanna, I asked for that black hat. Do you suppose I'm going to give all Beldingsville a chance to see how I 'take it'?" 

   "Oh, Aunt Polly, they'd never be there in that spirit," protested Pollyanna, hurriedly rummaging in the black bag for the much-wanted hat. "Besides, there won't be anybody there, anyway, to meet us. We didn't tell anyone we were coming, you know." 

   "Yes, I know. We didn't tell any one to meet us. But we instructed Mrs. Durgin to have the rooms aired and the key under the mat for to-day. Do you suppose Mary Durgin has kept that information to herself? Not much! Half the town knows we're coming to-day, and a dozen or more will 'happen around' the station about train time. I know them! They want to see what Polly Chilton poor looks like, without your Uncle. They-" 

"Oh, Aunt Polly, please," begged Pollyanna, with tears in her eyes. 

"If I wasn't so alone. If...Richard were only here, and-" She stopped speaking and turned away her head. Her mouth worked convulsively and Pollyanna saw a single tear run down her cheek. "Where is-that hat?" she choked. 

"Here it is-right here," comforted Pollyanna, whose only aim now, plainly, was to get the hat into her aunt's hands with all haste. "And here we are now almost there. Oh, Aunt Polly, I do wish you'd had Old Tom or Timothy meet us! " 

"And ride home in state, as if we could afford to keep such horses and carriages? And when we know we shall have to sell them to-morrow? No, I thank you, Pollyanna. I prefer to use the public carriage, under those circumstances." 

"I know, but-" The train came to a jolting, jarring stop, and only a fluttering sigh finished Pollyanna's sentence. 

As the two women stepped to the platform, Mrs Chilton, in her black hat, looked neither to the right nor the left. Pollyanna, however, was nodding and smiling tearfully in half a dozen directions before she had taken twice as many steps. Then, suddenly, she found herself looking into a familiar, yet strangely unfamiliar face. 

"Why, it isn't-it is-Jimmy! " she beamed, reaching forth a cordial hand. "That is, I suppose I should say 'Mr. Pendleton,'" she corrected herself with a shy smile that said plainly: "Now that you've grown so tall and fine!" 

"I'd like to see you try it," challenged the youth, with a very Jimmy-like tilt to his chin. He turned then to speak to Mrs Chilton; but that lady, with her head half averted, was hurrying on a little in advance. 

He turned back to Pollyanna, his eyes troubled and, sympathetic. 

"If you'd please come this way-both of you," he urged hurriedly. "Timothy is here with the carriage." 

   "Oh, how good of him," cried Pollyanna, but with an anxious glance at the somber figure ahead. Timidly she touched her aunt's arm. "Aunt Polly, Timothy's here. He's come with the carriage. He's over this side. And-this is Jimmy Bean. You remember Jimmy Bean!" 

In her nervousness and embarrassment Pollyanna did not notice that she had given the young man the old name of his boyhood. Mrs Chilton, however, evidently did notice it. She turned and inclined her head ever so slightly. 

"Mr.-Pendleton is very kind, I am sure; but I am sorry that he or Timothy took quite so much trouble," she said stiffly. 

"No trouble-no trouble at all, I assure you, laughed the young man, trying to hide his embarrassment. "Now if you'll just let me have your checks, so I can see to your baggage." 

"Thank you," began Mrs Chilton, "but I am very sure we can-" 

But Pollyanna, with a relieved little "thank you! had already passed over the checks; and dignity demanded that Mrs Chilton say no more. 

The drive home was a silent one. Timothy, vaguely hurt at the reception he had met with at the hands of his former mistress, sat up in front stiff and straight, with tense lips. Mrs. Chilton had subsided into gloom. Pollyanna, however, was neither stern, nor tense, nor gloomy, despite the worry about her Uncle that never left her. With eager, though tearful eyes she greeted each loved landmark as they came to it. Only when going past the church where her Aunt and Dr Chilton got married did her Aunt move, and that was to stare straight ahead, her lips trembling. And only once did Pollyanna speak, and that was to say: 

"Isn't Jimmy fine? How he has improved! And hasn't he the nicest eyes and smile?" 

She waited hopefully, but as there was no reply to this, she contented herself with a cheerful: "Well, I think he has, anyhow." 

Timothy had been both too aggrieved and too afraid to tell Mrs Chilton what to expect at home; so the wide-flung doors and flower-adorned rooms with Nancy courtesying on the porch were a complete surprise to Mrs Chilton and Pollyanna. 

"Why, Nancy, how perfectly lovely! " cried Pollyanna, springing lightly to the ground. "Auntie, here's Nancy to welcome us. And only see how charming she's made everything look!”

Pollyanna's voice was determinedly cheerful, though it shook audibly. This home-coming without the uncle whom she loved so well was not easy for her; and if hard for her, she knew something of what it must be for her aunt. She knew, too, that the one thing her aunt was dreading was a breakdown before Nancy, than which nothing could be worse in her eyes. Underneath the heavy black hat the eyes were brimming and the lips were trembling, Pollyanna knew. She knew, too, that to hide these facts her aunt would probably seize the first opportunity for fault finding, and make her anger a cloak to hide the fact that her heart was breaking. Pollyanna was not surprised, therefore, to hear her aunt's few words of greeting to Nancy followed by: " Of course all this was very kind, Nancy; but, really, you did not have to do it." 

All the joy fled from Nancy's face. She looked hurt and frightened. 

"Oh, but Mrs Chilton," she entreated; "it seemed as if I couldn't let you-" 

"There, there, never mind, Nancy," interrupted Mrs Chilton. "I-I don't want to talk about it." And, with her head proudly high, she swept out of the room. A minute later they heard the door of her and her husband’s bedroom shut up-stairs. 

Nancy turned in dismay. 

"Oh, Miss Pollyanna, what is it? What have I done? I thought she'd like it. I meant it all right! " 

"Of course you did," wept Pollyanna, fumbling in her bag for her handkerchief. "And 'twas lovely to have you do it, too,-just lovely." 

"But she didn't like it." 

"Yes, she did. But she didn't want to show she liked it. She was afraid if she did she'd show other things, and-Oh, Nancy, Nancy, I'm so glad just to c-cry! "And Pollyanna was sobbing on Nancy's shoulder. 

"There, there, dear; so she shall, so she shall," soothed Nancy, patting the heaving shoulders with one hand, and trying, with the other, to make the corner of her apron serve as a handkerchief to wipe her own tears away. 

"You see, I mustn't-cry-before-her," faltered Pollyanna; "and it was so hard-coming here-without Uncle Richard, you know, and all. And I knew - something - of how she was feeling."  
     
Of course, of course, poor lamb," crooned Nancy. "And to think the first thing I should have done was somethin' ter vex her, and-" 

"Oh, but she wasn't vexed at that," corrected Pollyanna, agitatedly. "It's just her way, Nancy. You see, she doesn't like to show how badly she feels about-about Uncle Richard. She’s terrified he – he won’t come back. And she's so afraid we'll hear bad news that she-she just takes anything for an excuse to-to talk about. She does it to me, too, just the same. So I know all about it. See? " 

"Oh, yes, I see, I do, I do. Poor lamb! I'm glad I come, anyhow, for your sake." 

"Yes, so am I," breathed Pollyanna, gently drawing herself away and wiping her eyes. "There, I feel better. And I do thank you ever so much, Nancy, and I appreciate it. Now don't let us keep you when it's time for you to go." 

"Ho! I'm thinkin' I'll stay for a spell," sniffed Nancy. 

"Stay!, Why, Nancy, I thought you were married. Aren't you Timothy's wife?"

"Sure! But he won't mind-for you. He'd want me to stay-for you." 

"Oh, but, Nancy, we couldn't let you, demurred Pollyanna. "We can't have anybody-now, you know. I'm going to do the work. Until we know just how things are, we shall live very economically, Aunt Polly says." 

   Not until supper was over, and everything put in order, did Mrs. Timothy Durgin consent to drive away with her husband; then she went with evident reluctance, and with many pleadings to be allowed to come just ter help out a bit "at any time. 

   After Nancy had gone, Pollyanna came into the living-room where Mrs Chilton was sitting alone, her hand over her eyes. 

"Well, shall I light up?" suggested Pollyanna, brightly. She couldn’t help noticing the photograph of her aunt and uncle hand-in-hand on their wedding day on a small table beside her aunt’s chair. Her heart almost started breaking again seeing how happy they looked, seeing her aunt’s warm and loving smile and the light in her uncle’s eyes now that he wasn’t there, sitting beside her Aunt and holding her hand, his eyes twinkling as he looked at his wife in that adoring way he always did. They had been married nine years and seemed to be even more in love now, if that was possible. Pollyanna knew how she desperately missed her husband and longed for him to be here with her. 

She remembered their travels in Germany; in the summers, her aunt and Dr Chilton walking arm-in-arm through the villages, in the winters when they sat snugly by the open fire, when her aunt lay in his arms as he read his medical texts, happy and content. She would never forget the look in his eyes, when he confessed to Pollyanna, years ago, that he still loved her aunt and the tenderness in the way they kissed when they thought they were alone. He had also relished being a father to Pollyanna and she felt his absence keenly. 

Aunt Polly finally replied with a muttered "Oh, I suppose so." 

"Wasn't Nancy a dear to fix us all up so nice? 

No answer. 

"Where in the world she found all these flowers I can't imagine. She has them in every room down here, and in both bedrooms, too." 

Still no answer. Aunt Polly was thinking of her husband. She had not wanted to leave his side and return home. Her heart ached when she thought of him ill and alone. She remembered how happy she had been: with a husband she loved, who adored her, the feel of his arms wrapped around her, the touch of his lips when he gathered her in his arms to kiss her when he returned home each evening, the happiness in his face and his eyes when she walked towards him to marry him. She thought of the tenderness in his touch, how every moment every day he showed her how much he loved her.

Pollyanna gave a half-stifled sigh and threw a wistful glance into her aunt's averted face. After a moment she began again hopefully. 

"I saw Old Tom in the garden. Poor man his rheumatism is worse than ever. He was bent nearly double. He inquired very particularly for you, and –“

Mrs. Chilton turned with a sharp interruption. 

"Pollyanna, what are we going to do?”

"Do? Why, the best we can, of course." 

Mrs. Chilton gave an impatient gesture. 

"Pollyanna, do be serious for once. What are we going to do? As you know, my income has almost entirely stopped. Of course, some of the things are worth something, I suppose; but Mr. Hart says very few of them will pay anything at present. We have your Uncle's income, something in the bank of course. And we have this house. But of what earthly use is the house? We can't eat it, or wear it. It's too big for us, the way we shall have to live; and we couldn't sell it for half what it's really worth, unless we happened to find just the person that wanted it." 

"Sell it! Oh, auntie, you wouldn't-this beautiful house full of lovely things!” 

“I may have to, Pollyanna. We have to eat unfortunately." 

"I know it; and I'm always so hungry," mourned Pollyanna, with a rueful laugh. "Still, I suppose I ought to be glad my appetite is so good." 

"Very likely. You'd find something to be glad about, of course. But what shall we do? I do wish you'd be serious for a minute." 

“When Uncle Richard comes home -,” she began.

Her Aunt took a breath as though to steady herself. “What if he doesn’t?” She said frigidly, staring straight ahead, her lips pursed. “He may well not and what are we going to do then, especially now that we’re poor?”

A quick change came to Pollyanna’s face.

“Uncle Richard doesn’t care if we’re poor,” Pollyanna said brightly. “You know that Auntie.” She hesitated and glanced at her Aunt, afraid she might upset her further. She remembered her uncle saying, years ago, that he would give all the world if only he and her aunt could be together.

“He doesn’t care at all,” she continued. “He just loves you and wants to be where you are, wherever that might be…all he ever wanted was you.”

Aunt Polly did know. Her eyes glittered with tears.

“He told me,” she continued with some difficulty, “when we last visited, that the best thing he ever did was marry you. Anyway, he will get better and come home Aunt Polly, you’ll see he will! You’ll see.”

Her Aunt was silent, her face averted. 

“And I am serious, Aunt Polly. I've been thinking. I-I wish I could earn some money." 

"Ugh! " moaned her Aunt; "a daughter of the Harringtons having to earn her bread!” 

"Oh, but that isn't the way to look at it," laughed Pollyanna. "You ought to be glad if a daughter of the Harringtons is smart enough to earn her bread! That isn't any disgrace, Aunt Polly." 

Her Aunt raised her eyebrows. "Perhaps not; but it isn't very pleasant to one's pride." 

Pollyanna did not seem to have heard. Her eyes were musingly fixed on space. 

"If only I had some talent! If only I could do something better than anybody else in the world," she sighed at last. " I can sing a little, play a little, embroider a little, and darn a little; but I can't do any of them well-not well enough to be paid for it. 

"I think I'd like best to cook," she resumed, after a minute's silence, "and keep house. You know I loved that in Germany winters, when Gretchen used to bother us by not coming when we wanted her. But I don't exactly want to go into other people's kitchens to do it." 

"As if I'd want you to! Pollyanna!” shuddered Mrs Chilton. 

"And of course, to just work in our own kitchen here doesn't bring in anything," bemoaned Pollyanna, " -- not any money, I mean. And it's money we need.

"It most emphatically is," sighed Aunt Polly. 

There was a long silence, broken at last by Pollyanna.

"To think that after all you've done for me, Aunt Polly-to think that now, if I only could, I'd have such a splendid chance to help! And yet-I can't do it. Oh, why wasn't I born with something that's worth money? " 

 "There, there, don't, don't! Of course, your uncle-" The words choked into silence. 

Pollyanna looked up quickly, and sprang to her feet. 

"This will never do!" she exclaimed, with a complete change of manner. "What'll you wager that I don't develop the most marvelous talent going, one of these days? Besides, I think it's real exciting-all this. There's so much uncertainty in it. There's a lot of fun in wanting things-and then watching for them to come. Just living along and knowing you're going to have everything you want is so-so humdrum, you know," she finished, with a gay little laugh. 

Mrs. Chilton, however, did not laugh. She only sighed.


	11. A Matter of Adjustment

The first few days at Beldingsville were not easy for either Mrs Chilton or for Pollyanna. They were days of adjustment; and days of adjustment are seldom easy.

From travel and excitement it was not easy to put one's mind to the consideration of the price of butter and the delinquencies of the butcher. From having all one's time for one's own, it was not easy to find always the next task clamoring to be done. Friends and neighbors called, too, and although Pollyanna welcomed them with glad cordiality, Mrs Chilton, when possible, excused herself; and always she said bitterly to Pollyanna:

"Curiosity, I suppose, to see how Polly Chilton likes being poor."

Of her husband Mrs Chilton didn't often speak, as Pollyanna knew she was afraid of breaking down in front of their visitors. Yet Pollyanna knew very well that never was he absent from her thoughts; and that more than once she had heard sobbing from her and her husband's bedroom at all hours of the day and night. 

Jimmy Pendleton Pollyanna saw several times during that first month. He came first with John Pendleton for a somewhat stiff and ceremonious call—not that it was either stiff or ceremonious until after Aunt Polly came into the room; then it was both. For some reason Aunt Polly had not excused herself on this occasion. After that Jimmy had come by himself, once with flowers, once with a book for Aunt Polly, twice with no excuse at all. Pollyanna welcomed him with frank pleasure always. Aunt Polly, after that first time, did not see him at all.

To the most of their friends and acquaintances Pollyanna said little about the change in their circumstances. To Jimmy, however, she talked freely, and always her constant cry was: "If only I could do something to bring in some money!"

"I'm getting to be the most mercenary little creature you ever saw," she laughed dolefully. "I've got so I measure everything with a dollar bill, and I actually think in quarters and dimes. You see, Aunt Polly does feel so poor!"

"It's a shame!" said Jimmy.

"I know it. But, honestly, I think she feels a little poorer than she needs to—she's brooded over it so. You know Uncle Richard wouldn't mind so much. But I do wish I could help!"

Jimmy looked down at the wistful, eager face with its luminous eyes, and nodded. His own eyes softened.

"What do you WANT to do—if you could do it?" he asked.

"Oh, I want to cook and keep house," smiled Pollyanna, with a pensive sigh. "I just love to beat eggs and sugar, and hear the soda gurgle its little tune in the cup of sour milk. I'm happy if I've got a day's baking before me. But there isn't any money in that—except in somebody else's kitchen, of course. And I—I don't exactly love it well enough for that!"

"I should say not!" ejaculated the young fellow.

Once more he glanced down at the expressive face so near him. This time a queer look came to the corners of his mouth. He pursed his lips, then spoke, a slow red mounting to his forehead.

"Well, of course you might—marry. Have you thought of that—Miss Pollyanna?"

Pollyanna gave a merry laugh. Voice and manner were unmistakably those of a girl quite untouched by even the most far-reaching of Cupid's darts.

"Oh, no, I shall never marry," she said blithely. "In the first place I'm not pretty, you know; and in the second place, I'm going to live with Aunt Polly and take care of her until Uncle Richard comes home she said determinedly."

"Not pretty, eh?" smiled Pendleton, quizzically. "Did it ever—er—occur to you that there might be a difference of opinion on that, Pollyanna?"

Pollyanna shook her head.

"There couldn't be. I've got a mirror, you see," she objected, with a merry glance.

It sounded like coquetry. In any other girl it would have been coquetry, Pendleton decided. But, looking into the face before him now, Pendleton knew that it was not coquetry. He knew, too, suddenly, why Pollyanna had seemed so different from any girl he had ever known. Something of her old literal way of looking at things still clung to her.

"Why aren't you pretty?" he asked.

Even as he uttered the question, and sure as he was of his estimate of Pollyanna's character, Pendleton quite held his breath at his temerity. He could not help thinking of how quickly any other girl he knew would have resented that implied acceptance of her claim to no beauty. But Pollyanna's first words showed him that even this lurking fear of his was quite groundless.

"Why, I just am not," she laughed, a little ruefully. "I wasn't made that way. Maybe you don't remember, but long ago, when I was a little girl, it always seemed to me that one of the nicest things Heaven was going to give me when I got there was dark curls, like Aunt Polly. She is still ever so beautiful."

"And is that your chief desire now?"

"N-no, maybe not," hesitated Pollyanna. "But I still think I'd like them. Besides, my eyelashes aren't long enough, and my nose isn't Grecian, or Roman, or any of those delightfully desirable ones that belong to a 'type.' It's just NOSE. And my face is too long, or too short, I've forgotten which; but I measured it once with one of those 'correct-for-beauty' tests, and it wasn't right, anyhow. And they said the width of the face should be equal to five eyes, and the width of the eyes equal to—to something else. I've forgotten that, too—only that mine wasn't."

"What a lugubrious picture!" laughed Pendleton. Then, with his gaze admiringly regarding the girl's animated face and expressive eyes, he asked:

"Did you ever look in the mirror when you were talking, Pollyanna?"

"Why, no, of course not!"

"Well, you'd better try it sometime."

"What a funny idea! Imagine my doing it," laughed the girl. "What shall I say? Like this? 'Now, you, Pollyanna, what if your eyelashes aren't long, and your nose is just a nose, be glad you've got SOME eyelashes and SOME nose!'"

Pendleton joined in her laugh, but an odd expression came to his face.

"Then you still play—the game," he said, a little diffidently.

Pollyanna turned soft eyes of wonder full upon him.

"Why, of course! Why, Jimmy, I don't believe I could have lived—the last six months—if it hadn't been for that blessed game." Her voice shook a little.

"I haven't heard you say much about it," he commented.

She changed color.

"I know. I think I'm afraid—of saying too much—to outsiders, who don't care, you know. It wouldn't sound quite the same from me now, at twenty, as it did when I was ten. I realize that, of course. Folks don't like to be preached at, you know," she finished with a whimsical smile.

"I know," nodded the young fellow gravely. "But I wonder sometimes, Pollyanna, if you really understand yourself what that game is, and what it has done for those who are playing it."

"I know—what it has done for myself - and Aunt Polly." Her voice was low, and her eyes were turned away.

"You see, it really WORKS, if you play it," he mused aloud, after a short silence. "Somebody said once that it would revolutionize the world if everybody would really play it. And I believe it would."

"Yes; but some folks don't want to be revolutionized," smiled Pollyanna. "I ran across a man in Germany last year. He had lost his money, and was in hard luck generally. Dear, dear, but he was gloomy! Somebody in my presence tried to cheer him up one day by saying, 'Come, come, things might be worse, you know!' Dear, dear, but you should have heard that man then!

"'If there is anything on earth that makes me mad clear through,' he snarled, 'it is to be told that things might be worse, and to be thankful for what I've got left. These people who go around with an everlasting grin on their faces caroling forth that they are thankful that they can breathe, or eat, or walk, or lie down, I have no use for. I don't WANT to breathe, or eat, or walk, or lie down—if things are as they are now with me. And when I'm told that I ought to be thankful for some such tommyrot as that, it makes me just want to go out and shoot somebody!'"

"Imagine what I'D have gotten if I'd have introduced the glad game to that man!" laughed Pollyanna.

"I don't care. He needed it," answered Jimmy.

"Of course he did—but he wouldn't have thanked me for giving it to him."

"I suppose not. But, listen! As he was, under his present philosophy and scheme of living, he made himself and everybody else wretched, didn't he? Well, just suppose he was playing the game. While he was trying to hunt up something to be glad about in everything that had happened to him, he COULDN'T be at the same time grumbling and growling about how bad things were; so that much would be gained. He'd be a whole lot easier to live with, both for himself and for his friends. Meanwhile, just thinking of the doughnut instead of the hole couldn't make things any worse for him, and it might make things better; for it wouldn't give him such a gone feeling in the pit of his stomach, and his digestion would be better. I tell you, troubles are poor things to hug. They've got too many prickers."

Pollyanna smiled appreciatively.

"That makes me think of what I told a poor old lady once. She was one of my Ladies' Aiders out in my old home, and was one of the kind of people that really ENJOYS being miserable and telling over her causes for unhappiness. I was perhaps ten years old, and was trying to teach her the game. I reckon I wasn't having very good success, and evidently I at last dimly realized the reason, for I said to her triumphantly: 'Well, anyhow, you can be glad you've got such a lot of things to make you miserable, for you love to be miserable so well!'"

"Well, if that wasn't a good one on her," chuckled Jimmy.

Pollyanna raised her eyebrows.

"I'm afraid she didn't enjoy it any more than the man in Germany would have if I'd told him the same thing."

"But they ought to be told, and you ought to tell—" Pendleton stopped short with so queer an expression on his face that Pollyanna looked at him in surprise.

"Why, Jimmy, what is it?"

"Oh, nothing. I was only thinking," he answered, puckering his lips. "Here I am urging you to do the very thing I was afraid you WOULD do before I saw you, you know. That is, I was afraid before I saw you, that—that—" He floundered into a helpless pause, looking very red indeed.

"Well, Jimmy Pendleton," bridled the girl, "you needn't think you can stop there, sir. Now just what do you mean by all that, please?"

"Oh, er—n-nothing, much."

"I'm waiting," murmured Pollyanna. Voice and manner were calm and confident, though the eyes twinkled mischievously.

The young fellow hesitated, glanced at her smiling face, and capitulated.

"Oh, well, have it your own way," he shrugged. "It's only that I was worrying—a little—about that game, for fear you WOULD talk it just as you used to, you know, and—" But a merry peal of laughter interrupted him.

"There, what did I tell you? Even you were worried, it seems, lest I should be at twenty just what I was at ten!"

"N-no, I didn't mean—Pollyanna, honestly, I thought—of course I knew—" But Pollyanna only put her hands to her ears and went off into another peal of laughter.


	12. Two Letters

It was toward the latter part of June that the letter came to Pollyanna from Della Wetherby.

"I am writing to ask you a favor," Miss Wetherby wrote. "I am hoping you can tell me of some quiet private family in Beldingsville that will be willing to take my sister to board for the summer. There would be three of them, Mrs. Carew, her secretary, and her adopted son, Jamie. (You remember Jamie, don't you?) They do not like to go to an ordinary hotel or boarding house. My sister is very tired, and the doctor has advised her to go into the country for a complete rest and change. He suggested Cornwall or Sussex. We immediately thought of Beldingsville and you; and we wondered if you couldn't recommend just the right place to us. I told Ruth I would write you. They would like to go right away, early in July, if possible. Would it be asking too much to request you to let us know as soon as you conveniently can if you do know of a place? Please address me here. My sister is with us here at the Sanatorium for a few weeks' treatment.

"Hoping for a favorable reply, I am,

"Most cordially yours,

"DELLA WETHERBY."

For the first few minutes after the letter was finished, Pollyanna sat with frowning brow, mentally searching the homes of Beldingsville for a possible boarding house for her old friends. Then a sudden something gave her thoughts a new turn, and with a joyous exclamation she hurried to her aunt in the living-room.

Aunt Polly was sitting there listlessly after walking in the garden. They had received a letter from the clinic where Dr Chilton was just that morning - it said that he was still the same and there was no improvement. Her head was in her hand and she didn't even look up when Pollyanna came in.

"Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly," she panted; "I've got just the loveliest idea. I told you something would happen, and that I'd develop that wonderful talent sometime. Well, I have. I have right now. Listen! I've had a letter from Miss Wetherby, Mrs. Carew's sister—where I stayed that winter in London, you know—and they want to come into the country to board for the summer, and Miss Wetherby's written to see if I didn't know a place for them. They don't want a hotel or an ordinary boarding house, you see. And at first I didn't know of one; but now I do. I do, Aunt Polly! Just guess where 'tis."

"Dear me," muttered Mrs. Chilton, rousing herself to sit up. "How you do run on! What are you talking about?"

"About a boarding place for Mrs. Carew and Jamie. I've found it," babbled Pollyanna.

"Indeed! Well, what of it? Of what possible interest can that be to me?" murmured Mrs. Chilton.

"Because it's HERE. I'm going to have them here, Aunt Polly."

"Pollyanna!" Mrs. Chilton sat up, erect.

"Now, Aunt Polly, please don't say no—please don't," begged Pollyanna, eagerly. "Don't you see? This is my chance, the chance I've been waiting for; and it's just dropped right into my hands. We can do it lovely. We have plenty of room, and you know I CAN cook and keep house. And now there'd be money in it, for they'd pay well, I know; and they'd love to come, I'm sure. There'd be three of them—there's a secretary with them."

"But, Pollyanna, I can't! Turn this house into a boarding house? Oh, Pollyanna, I can't, I can't!"

"But it wouldn't be a common boarding house, 'twill be an uncommon one. Besides, they're our friends. It would be like having our friends come to see us; only they'd be PAYING guests, so meanwhile we'd be earning money—money that we NEED, Aunt Polly, money that we need," she emphasized significantly.

A spasm of hurt pride crossed Polly Chilton's face. She fell back in her chair.

"But how could you do it?" she asked at last, faintly. "You couldn't do the work part alone, child!"

"Oh, no, of course not," chirped Pollyanna. (Pollyanna was on sure ground now. She knew her point was won.) "But I could do the cooking and the overseeing, and I'm sure I could get one of Nancy's younger sisters to help about the rest. Mrs. Durgin would do the laundry part just as she does now. And you could help too!"

Her Aunt just stared. 

"Really I...I think Uncle Richard would be rather proud."

For the first time in months, Pollyanna saw her Aunt's lips curve into the slightest of smiles. 

"Yes," she said softly, looking down at her hands in her lap. "I...l believe he would." 

"Oh, Aunt Polly, won't it be splendid? Why, it seems too good to be true—money just dropped into my hands like that!"

"Dropped into your hands, indeed!" He Aunt said, rather dryly. "You still have some things to learn in this world, Pollyanna, and one is that summer boarders don't drop money into anybody's hands without looking very sharply to it that they get ample return. By the time you fetch and carry and bake and brew until you are ready to sink, and by the time you nearly kill yourself trying to serve everything to order from fresh-laid eggs to the weather, you will believe what I tell you."

"All right, I'll remember," laughed Pollyanna. "But I'm not doing any worrying now; and I'm going to hurry and write Miss Wetherby at once so I can give it to Jimmy Bean to mail when he comes out this afternoon."

She had the letter all ready for Jimmy when he called at four o'clock. She was still quivering—with excitement, and she lost no time in telling her visitor what it was all about.

"And I'm crazy to see them, besides," she cried, when she had told him of her plans. "I've never seen either of them since that winter. You know I told you—didn't I tell you?—about Jamie."

"Oh, yes, you told me." There was a touch of constraint in the young man's voice.

"Well, isn't it splendid, if they can come?"

"Why, I don't know as I should call it exactly splendid," he parried.

"Not splendid that I've got such a chance to help Aunt Polly out, for even this little while? Why, Jimmy, of course it's splendid."

"Well, it strikes me that it's going to be rather HARD—for you...well, and her," bridled Jimmy, with more than a shade of irritation.

"Yes, of course, in some ways. But I shall be so glad for the money coming in that I'll think of that all the time. You see," she sighed, "how mercenary I am, Jimmy."

For a long minute there was no reply; then, a little abruptly, the young man asked:

"Let's see, how old is this Jamie now?"

Pollyanna glanced up with a merry smile.

"Oh, I remember—you never did like his name, 'Jamie,'" she twinkled. "Never mind; he's adopted now, legally, I believe, and has taken the name of Carew. So you can call him that."

"But that isn't telling me how old he is," reminded Jimmy, stiffly.

"Nobody knows, exactly, I suppose. You know he couldn't tell; but I imagine he's about your age. I wonder how he is now. I've asked all about it in this letter, anyway."

"Oh, you have!" Pendleton looked down at the letter in his hand and flipped it a little spitefully. He was thinking that he would like to drop it, to tear it up, to give it to somebody, to throw it away, to do anything with it—but mail it.

Jimmy knew perfectly well that he was jealous, that he always had been jealous of this youth with the name so like and yet so unlike his own. Not that he was in love with Pollyanna, he assured himself wrathfully. He was not that, of course. It was just that he did not care to have this strange youth with the sissy name come to Beldingsville and be always around to spoil all their good times. He almost said as much to Pollyanna, but something stayed the words on his lips; and after a time he took his leave, carrying the letter with him.

That Jimmy did not drop the letter, tear it up, give it to anybody, or throw it away was evidenced a few days later, for Pollyanna received a prompt and delighted reply from Miss Wetherby; and when Jimmy came next time he heard it read—or rather he heard part of it, for Pollyanna prefaced the reading by saying:

"Of course the first part is just where she says how glad they are to come, and all that. I won't read that. But the rest I thought you'd like to hear, because you've heard me talk so much about them. Besides, you'll know them yourself pretty soon, of course. I'm depending a whole lot on you, Jimmy, to help me make it pleasant for them."

"Oh, are you!"

"Now don't be sarcastic, just because you don't like Jamie's name," reproved Pollyanna, with mock severity. "You'll like HIM, I'm sure, when you know him; and you'll LOVE Mrs. Carew."

"Will I, indeed?" retorted Jimmy huffily. "Well, that IS a serious prospect. Let us hope, if I do, the lady will be so gracious as to reciprocate."

"Of course," dimpled Pollyanna. "Now listen, and I'll read to you about her. This letter is from her sister, Della—Miss Wetherby, you know, at the Sanatorium."

"All right. Go ahead!" directed Jimmy, with a somewhat too evident attempt at polite interest. And Pollyanna, still smiling mischievously, began to read.

"You ask me to tell you everything about everybody. That is a large commission, but I'll do the best I can. To begin with, I think you'll find my sister quite changed. The new interests that have come into her life during the last six years have done wonders for her. Just now she is a bit thin and tired from overwork, but a good rest will soon remedy that, and you'll see how young and blooming and happy she looks. Please notice I said HAPPY. That won't mean so much to you as it does to me, of course, for you were too young to realize quite how unhappy she was when you first knew her that winter in London. Life was such a dreary, hopeless thing to her then; and now it is so full of interest and joy.

"First she has Jamie, and when you see them together you won't need to be told what he is to her. To be sure, we are no nearer knowing whether he is the REAL Jamie, or not, but my sister loves him like an own son now, and has legally adopted him, as I presume you know.

"Then she has her girls. Do you remember Sadie Dean, the salesgirl? Well, from getting interested in her, and trying to help her to a happier living, my sister has broadened her efforts little by little, until she has scores of girls now who regard her as their own best and particular good angel. She has started a Home for Working Girls along new lines. Half a dozen wealthy and influential men and women are associated with her, of course, but she is head and shoulders of the whole thing, and never hesitates to give HERSELF to each and every one of the girls. You can imagine what that means in nerve strain. Her chief support and right-hand man is her secretary, this same Sadie Dean. You'll find HER changed, too, yet she is the same old Sadie.

"As for Jamie—poor Jamie! The great sorrow of his life is that he knows now he can never walk. For a time we all had hopes. He was here at the Sanatorium under Dr. Ames for a year, and he improved to such an extent that he can go now with crutches. But the poor boy will always be a cripple—so far as his feet are concerned, but never as regards anything else. Someway, after you know Jamie, you seldom think of him as a cripple, his SOUL is so free. I can't explain it, but you'll know what I mean when you see him; and he has retained, to a marvelous degree, his old boyish enthusiasm and joy of living. There is just one thing—and only one, I believe—that would utterly quench that bright spirit and cast him into utter despair; and that is to find that he is not Jamie Kent, our nephew. So long has he brooded over this, and so ardently has he wished it, that he has come actually to believe that he IS the real Jamie; but if he isn't, I hope he will never find it out.

We all send you and Mrs Chilton our best wishes. Of course we have heard of Dr Chilton's illness and we are hoping and praying for the best."

"There, that's all she says about them," announced Pollyanna, folding up the closely-written sheets in her hands. "But isn't that interesting?"

"Indeed it is!" There was a ring of genuineness in Jimmy's voice now. Jimmy was thinking suddenly of what his own good legs meant to him. He even, for the moment, was willing that this poor crippled youth should have a PART of Pollyanna's thoughts and attentions, if he were not so presuming as to claim too much of them, of course! "By George! it is tough for the poor chap, and no mistake."

"Tough! You don't know anything about it, Jimmy Bean," choked Pollyanna; "but I do. I couldn't walk once. I KNOW!"

"Yes, of course, of course," frowned the youth, moving restively in his seat. Jimmy, looking into Pollyanna's sympathetic face and brimming eyes was suddenly not so sure, after all, that he WAS willing to have this Jamie come to town—if just to THINK of him made Pollyanna look like that!


	13. The Paying Guests

The few intervening days before the expected arrival of "these people," as Aunt Polly dryly termed her niece's paying guests, were busy ones indeed for Pollyanna—and her Aunt - but they were happy enough ones, too, as Pollyanna refused to be weary, or discouraged, or dismayed, no matter how puzzling were the daily problems she had to meet.

Summoning Nancy, and Nancy's younger sister, Betty, to her aid, Pollyanna systematically went through the house, room by room, and arranged for the comfort and convenience of her expected boarders. Mrs Chilton helped too, although Pollyanna could tell it was mostly to distract herself from thinking and worrying about her husband, than any overwhealming enthusiasum for their arrival. She did once mutter, somewhat melodramatically:

"Oh, Pollyanna, to think of the family homestead ever coming to this!"

"It isn't, Aunt Polly," Pollyanna at last soothed laughingly. "It's the Carews that are COMING TO THE FAMILY HOMESTEAD!"

But Mrs. Chilton just rolled her eyes and went about her tasks, sadness and worry still etched on her face. 

Upon the appointed day, Pollyanna with Timothy (who owned the Chilton's horses now) went to the station to meet the afternoon train. Up to this hour there had been nothing but confidence and joyous anticipation in Pollyanna's heart. But with the whistle of the engine there came to her a veritable panic of doubt, shyness, and dismay. She realized suddenly what she, Pollyanna, almost alone and unaided, was about to do. She remembered Mrs. Carew's wealth, position, and fastidious tastes. She recollected, too, that this would be a new, tall, young-man Jamie, quite unlike the boy she had known.

For one awful moment she thought only of getting away—somewhere, anywhere.

"Timothy, I—I feel sick. I'm not well. I—tell 'em—er—not to come," she faltered, poising as if for flight.

"Ma'am!" exclaimed the startled Timothy.

One glance into Timothy's amazed face was enough. Pollyanna laughed and threw back her shoulders alertly.

"Nothing. Never mind! I didn't mean it, of course, Timothy. Quick—see! They're almost here," she panted. And Pollyanna hurried forward, quite herself once more.

She knew them at once. Even had there been any doubt in her mind, the crutches in the hands of the tall, brown-eyed young man would have piloted her straight to her goal.

There were a brief few minutes of eager handclasps and incoherent exclamations, then, somehow, she found herself in the carriage with Mrs. Carew at her side, and Jamie and Sadie Dean in front. She had a chance, then, for the first time, really to see her friends, and to note the changes the six years had wrought.

In regard to Mrs. Carew, her first feeling was one of surprise. She had forgotten that Mrs. Carew was so lovely. She had forgotten that the eyelashes were so long, that the eyes they shaded were so beautiful. She even caught herself thinking enviously of how exactly that perfect face must tally, figure by figure, with that dread beauty-test-table. But more than anything else she rejoiced in the absence of the old fretful lines of gloom and bitterness. Not unlike her Aunt Polly, she thought briefly, although to her Mrs Chilton would always be beautiful. 

Then she turned to Jamie. Here again she was surprised, and for much the same reason. Jamie, too, had grown handsome. To herself Pollyanna declared that he was really distinguished looking. His dark eyes, rather pale face, and dark, waving hair she thought most attractive. Then she caught a glimpse of the crutches at his side, and a spasm of aching sympathy contracted her throat.

From Jamie Pollyanna turned to Sadie Dean.

Sadie, so far as features went, looked much as she had when Pollyanna first saw her in the Public Garden; but Pollyanna did not need a second glance to know that Sadie, so far as hair, dress, temper, speech, and disposition were concerned, was a very different Sadie indeed.

Then Jamie spoke.

"How good you were to let us come," he said to Pollyanna. "Do you know what I thought of when you wrote that we could come?"

"Why, n-no, of course not," stammered Pollyanna. Pollyanna was still seeing the crutches at Jamie's side, and her throat was still tightened from that aching sympathy.

"Well, I thought of the little maid in the Public Garden with her bag of peanuts for Sir Lancelot and Lady Guinevere, and I knew that you were just putting us in their places, for if you had a bag of peanuts, and we had none, you wouldn't be happy till you'd shared it with us."

"A bag of peanuts, indeed!" laughed Pollyanna.

"Oh, of course in this case, your bag of peanuts happened to be airy country rooms, and cow's milk, and real eggs from a real hen's nest," returned Jamie whimsically; "but it amounts to the same thing. And maybe I'd better warn you—you remember how greedy Sir Lancelot was;—well—" He paused meaningly.

"All right, I'll take the risk," dimpled Pollyanna, thinking how glad she was that Aunt Polly was not present to hear her worst predictions so nearly fulfilled thus early. "Poor Sir Lancelot! I wonder if anybody feeds him now, or if he's there at all."

"Well, if he's there, he's fed," interposed Mrs. Carew, merrily. "This ridiculous boy still goes down there at least once a week with his pockets bulging with peanuts and I don't know what all. He can be traced any time by the trail of small grains he leaves behind him; and half the time, when I order my cereal for breakfast it isn't forthcoming, because, forsooth, 'Master Jamie has fed it to the pigeons, ma'am!'"

"Yes, but let me tell you," plunged in Jamie, enthusiastically. And the next minute Pollyanna found herself listening with all the old fascination to a story of a couple of squirrels in a sunlit garden. Later she saw what Della Wetherby had meant in her letter, for when the house was reached, it came as a distinct shock to her to see Jamie pick up his crutches and swing himself out of the carriage with their aid. She knew then that already in ten short minutes he had made her forget that he was lame.

To Pollyanna's great relief that first meeting between Aunt Polly and the Carew party passed off much better than she thought. The newcomers were so frankly delighted with the house and everything in it, that it was an utter impossibility for the mistress and owner of it all to continue her stiff attitude or lack of enthusiasium about their presence. Thankfully, their guests had to foresight not to ask after Dr Chilton in front of his wife (Mrs Carew had decided this after seeing the barely concealed worry and distress etched on Aunt Polly's still very pretty face). Evidently, Aunt Polly noticed and, relieved, was beginning to play the stately, yet gracious hostess to their guests.

Notwithstanding her relief at Aunt Polly's change of attitude, however, Pollyanna did not find that all was smooth sailing, by any means. There was work, and plenty of it, that must be done. Aunt Polly helped, of course and Nancy's sister, Betty was pleasant and willing, but she was not Nancy, as Pollyanna soon found. She needed training, and training took time. Pollyanna worried, too, for fear everything should not be quite right. To Pollyanna, those days, a dusty chair was a crime and a fallen cake a tragedy.

Gradually, however, after incessant arguments and pleadings on the part of Mrs. Carew and Jamie, Pollyanna came to take her tasks more easily, and to realize that the real crime and tragedy in her friends' eyes was, not the dusty chair nor the fallen cake, but the frown of worry and anxiety on her own face.

"Just as if it wasn't enough for you to LET us come," Jamie declared, "without you and your Aunt just killing yourselves with work to get us something to eat."

"Besides, we ought not to eat so much, anyway," Mrs. Carew laughed, "or else we shall get 'digestion,' as one of my girls calls it when her food disagrees with her."

It was wonderful, after all, how easily the three new members of the family fitted into the daily life. Before twenty-four hours had passed, Mrs. Carew had gotten Mrs. Chilton to asking really interested questions about the new Home for Working Girls, and Sadie Dean and Jamie were quarreling over the chance to help with the pea-shelling or the flower-picking.

The Carews had been at the Chilton's homestead nearly a week when one evening John Pendleton and Jimmy called. Pollyanna had been hoping they would come soon. She had, indeed, urged it very strongly before the Carews came. She made the introductions now with visible pride.

"You are such good friends of mine, I want you to know each other, and be good friends together," she explained.

That Jimmy and Mr. Pendleton should be clearly impressed with the charm and beauty of Mrs. Carew did not surprise Pollyanna in the least; but the look that came into Mrs. Carew's face at sight of Jimmy did surprise her very much. It was almost a look of recognition.

"Why, Mr. Pendleton, haven't I met you before?" Mrs. Carew cried.

Jimmy's frank eyes met Mrs. Carew's gaze squarely, admiringly.

"I think not," he smiled back at her. "I'm sure I never have met you. I should have remembered it—if I had met YOU," he bowed.

So unmistakable was his significant emphasis that everybody laughed, and John Pendleton chuckled:

"Well done, son—for a youth of your tender years. I couldn't have done half so well myself."

Mrs. Carew flushed slightly and joined in the laugh.

"No, but really," she urged; "joking aside, there certainly is a strangely familiar something in your face. I think I must have SEEN you somewhere, if I haven't actually met you."

"And maybe you have," cried Pollyanna, "in Boston. Jimmy goes to Tech there winters, you know. Jimmy's going to build bridges and dams, you see—when he grows up, I mean," she finished with a merry glance at the big six-foot fellow still standing before Mrs. Carew.

Everybody laughed again, even Aunt Polly raised a smile—that is, everybody but Jamie; and only Sadie Dean noticed that Jamie, instead of laughing, closed his eyes as if at the sight of something that hurt. And only Sadie Dean knew how—and why—the subject was so quickly changed, for it was Sadie herself who changed it. It was Sadie, too, who, when the opportunity came, saw to it that books and flowers and beasts and birds—things that Jamie knew and understood—were talked about as well as dams and bridges which (as Sadie knew), Jamie could never build. That Sadie did all this, however, was not realized by anybody, least of all by Jamie, the one who most of all was concerned.

When the call was over and the Pendletons had gone, Mrs. Carew referred again to the curiously haunting feeling that somewhere she had seen young Pendleton before.

"I have, I know I have—somewhere," she declared musingly. "Of course it may have been in London; but—" She let the sentence remain unfinished; then, after a minute she added: "He's a fine young fellow, anyway. I like him."

"I'm so glad! I do, too," nodded Pollyanna. "I've always liked Jimmy."

"You've known him some time, then?" queried Jamie, a little wistfully.

"Oh, yes. I knew him years ago when I was a little girl, you know. He was Jimmy Bean then."

"Jimmy BEAN! Why, isn't he Mr. Pendleton's son?" asked Mrs. Carew, in surprise.

"No, only by adoption."

"Adoption!" exclaimed Jamie. "Then HE isn't a real son any more than I am." There was a curious note of almost joy in the lad's voice.

"No. Mr. Pendleton hasn't any children. He never married. He—he was going to, once, but he—he didn't." Pollyanna blushed and spoke with sudden diffidence. Pollyanna had never forgotten that it was her mother who, in the long ago, had said no to this same John Pendleton, and who had thus been responsible for the man's long, lonely years of bachelorhood.

Mrs. Carew and Jamie, however, being unaware of this, and seeing now only the blush on Pollyanna's cheek and the diffidence in her manner, drew suddenly the same conclusion.

"Is it possible," they asked themselves, "that this man, John Pendleton, ever had a love affair with Pollyanna, child that she is?"

Naturally they did not say this aloud; so, naturally, there was no answer possible. Naturally, too, perhaps, the thought, though unspoken, was still not forgotten, but was tucked away in a corner of their minds for future reference—if need arose.


	14. Jimmy Wakes Up

Outwardly the camping trip was pronounced a great success; but inwardly—

Pollyanna wondered sometimes if it were all herself, or if there really were a peculiar, indefinable constraint in everybody with everybody else. Certainly she felt it, and she thought she saw evidences that the others felt it, too. As for the cause of it all—unhesitatingly she attributed it to that last day at camp with its unfortunate trip to the Basin.

To be sure, she and Jimmy had easily caught up with Jamie, and had, after considerable coaxing, persuaded him to turn about and go on to the Basin with them. But, in spite of everybody's very evident efforts to act as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, nobody really succeeded in doing so. Pollyanna, Jamie, and Jimmy overdid their gayety a bit, perhaps; and the others, while not knowing exactly what had happened, very evidently felt that something was not quite right, though they plainly tried to hide the fact that they did feel so. Naturally, in this state of affairs, restful happiness was out of the question. Even the anticipated fish dinner was flavorless; and early in the afternoon the start was made back to the camp.

Once home again, Pollyanna had hoped that the unhappy episode of the angry bull would be forgotten. But she could not forget it, so in all fairness she could not blame the others if they could not. Always she thought of it now when she looked at Jamie. She saw again the agony on his face, the crimson stain on the palms of his hands. Her heart ached for him, and because it did so ache, his mere presence had come to be a pain to her. Remorsefully she confessed to herself that she did not like to be with Jamie now, nor to talk with him—but that did not mean that she was not often with him. She was with him, indeed, much oftener than before, for so remorseful was she, and so fearful was she that he would detect her unhappy frame of mind, that she lost no opportunity of responding to his overtures of comradeship; and sometimes she deliberately sought him out. This last she did not often have to do, however, for more and more frequently these days Jamie seemed to be turning to her for companionship.

The reason for this, Pollyanna believed, was to be found in this same incident of the bull and the rescue. Not that Jamie ever referred to it directly. He never did that. He was, too, even gayer than usual; but Pollyanna thought she detected sometimes a bitterness underneath it all that was never there before. Certainly she could not help seeing that at times he seemed almost to want to avoid the others, and that he actually sighed, as if with relief, when he found himself alone with her. She thought she knew why this was so, after he said to her, as he did say one day, while they were watching the others play tennis:

"You see, after all, Pollyanna, there isn't any one who can quite understand as you can."

"'Understand'?" Pollyanna had not known what he meant at first. They had been watching the players for five minutes without a word between them.

"Yes; for you, once—couldn't walk—yourself."

"Oh-h, yes, I know," faltered Pollyanna; and she knew that her great distress must have shown in her face, for so quickly and so blithely did he change the subject, after a laughing:

"Come, come, Pollyanna, why don't you tell me to play the game? I would if I were in your place. Forget it, please. I was a brute to make you look like that!"

And Pollyanna smiled, and said: "No, no—no, indeed!" But she did not "forget it." She could not. And it all made her only the more anxious to be with Jamie and help him all she could.

"As if NOW I'd ever let him see that I was ever anything but glad when he was with me!" she thought fervently, as she hurried forward a minute later to take her turn in the game.

Pollyanna, however, was not the only one in the party who felt a new awkwardness and constraint. Jimmy Pendleton felt it, though he, too, tried not to show it.

Jimmy was not happy these days. From a care-free youth whose visions were of wonderful spans across hitherto unbridgeable chasms, he has come to be an anxious-eyed young man whose visions were of a feared rival bearing away the girl he loved.

Jimmy knew very well now that he was in love with Pollyanna. He suspected that he had been in love with her for some time. He stood aghast, indeed, to find himself so shaken and powerless before this thing that had come to him. He knew that even his beloved bridges were as nothing when weighed against the smile in a girl's eyes and the word on a girl's lips. He realized that the most wonderful span in the world to him would be the thing that could help him to cross the chasm of fear and doubt that he felt lay between him and Pollyanna—doubt because of Pollyanna; fear because of Jamie.

Not until he had seen Pollyanna in jeopardy that day in the pasture had he realized how empty would be the world—his world—without her. Not until his wild dash for safety with Pollyanna in his arms had he realized how precious she was to him. For a moment, indeed, with his arms about her, and hers clinging about his neck, he had felt that she was indeed his; and even in that supreme moment of danger he knew the thrill of supreme bliss. Then, a little later, he had seen Jamie's face, and Jamie's hands. To him they could mean but one thing: Jamie, too, loved Pollyanna, and Jamie had to stand by, helpless—"tied to two sticks." That was what he had said. Jimmy believed that, had he himself been obliged to stand by helpless, "tied to two sticks," while another rescued the girl that he loved, he would have looked like that.

Jimmy had gone back to camp that day with his thoughts in a turmoil of fear and rebellion. He wondered if Pollyanna cared for Jamie; that was where the fear came in. But even if she did care, a little, must he stand aside, weakly, and let Jamie, without a struggle, make her learn to care more? That was where the rebellion came in. Indeed, no, he would not do it, decided Jimmy. It should be a fair fight between them.

Then, all by himself as he was, Jimmy flushed hot to the roots of his hair. Would it be a "fair" fight? Could any fight between him and Jamie be a "fair" fight? Jimmy felt suddenly as he had felt years before when, as a lad, he had challenged a new boy to a fight for an apple they both claimed, then, at the first blow, had discovered that the new boy had a crippled arm. He had purposely lost then, of course, and had let the crippled boy win. But he told himself fiercely now that this case was different. It was no apple that was at stake. It was his life's happiness. It might even be Pollyanna's life's happiness, too. Perhaps she did not care for Jamie at all, but would care for her old friend, Jimmy, if he but once showed her he wanted her to care. And he would show her. He would—

Once again Jimmy blushed hotly. But he frowned, too, angrily: if only he COULD forget how Jamie had looked when he had uttered that moaning "tied to two sticks!" If only—But what was the use? It was NOT a fair fight, and he knew it. He knew, too, right there and then, that his decision would be just what it afterwards proved to be: he would watch and wait. He would give Jamie his chance; and if Pollyanna showed that she cared, he would take himself off and away quite out of their lives; and they should never know, either of them, how bitterly he was suffering. He would go back to his bridges—as if any bridge, though it led to the moon itself, could compare for a moment with Pollyanna! But he would do it. He must do it.

It was all very fine and heroic, and Jimmy felt so exalted he was atingle with something that was almost happiness when he finally dropped off to sleep that night. But martyrdom in theory and practice differs woefully, as would-be martyrs have found out from time immemorial. It was all very well to decide alone and in the dark that he would give Jamie his chance; but it was quite another matter really to do it when it involved nothing less than the leaving of Pollyanna and Jamie together almost every time he saw them. Then, too, he was very much worried at Pollyanna's apparent attitude toward the lame youth. It looked very much to Jimmy as if she did indeed care for him, so watchful was she of his comfort, so apparently eager to be with him. Then, as if to settle any possible doubt in Jimmy's mind, there came the day when Sadie Dean had something to say on the subject.

They were all out in the tennis court. Sadie was sitting alone when  
Jimmy strolled up to her.  
"You next with Pollyanna, isn't it?" he queried.

She shook her head.

"Pollyanna isn't playing any more this morning."

"Isn't playing!" frowned Jimmy, who had been counting on his own game with Pollyanna. "Why not?"

For a brief minute Sadie Dean did not answer; then with very evident difficulty she said:

"Pollyanna told me last night that she thought we were playing tennis too much; that it wasn't kind to—Mr. Carew, as long as he can't play."

"I know; but—" Jimmy stopped helplessly, the frown plowing a deeper furrow into his forehead. The next instant he fairly started with surprise at the tense something in Sadie Dean's voice, as she said:

"But he doesn't want her to stop. He doesn't want any one of us to make any difference—for him. It's that that hurts him so. She doesn't understand. She doesn't understand! But I do. She thinks she does, though!"

Something in words or manner sent a sudden pang to Jimmy's heart. He threw a sharp look into her face. A question flew to his lips. For a moment he held it back; then, trying to hide his earnestness with a bantering smile, he let it come.

"Why, Miss Dean, you don't mean to convey the idea that—that there's any SPECIAL interest in each other—between those two, do you?"

She gave him a scornful glance.

"Where have your eyes been? She worships him! I mean—they worship each other," she corrected hastily.

Jimmy, with an inarticulate ejaculation, turned and walked away abruptly. He could not trust himself to remain longer. He did not wish to talk any more, just then, to Sadie Dean. So abruptly, indeed, did he turn, that he did not notice that Sadie Dean, too, turned hurriedly, and busied herself looking in the grass at her feet, as if she had lost something. Very evidently, Sadie Dean, also, did not wish to talk any more just then.

Jimmy Pendleton told himself that it was not true at all; that it was all falderal, what Sadie Dean had said. Yet nevertheless, true or not true, he could not forget it. It colored all his thoughts thereafter, and loomed before his eyes like a shadow whenever he saw Pollyanna and Jamie together. He watched their faces covertly. He listened to the tones of their voices. He came then, in time, to think it was, after all, true: that they did worship each other; and his heart, in consequence, grew like lead within him. True to his promise to himself, however, he turned resolutely away. The die was cast, he told himself. Pollyanna was not to be for him.

Restless days for Jimmy followed. To stay away from the Harrington homestead entirely he did not dare, lest his secret be suspected. To be with Pollyanna at all now was torture. Even to be with Sadie Dean was unpleasant, for he could not forget that it was Sadie Dean who had finally opened his eyes. Jamie, certainly, was no haven of refuge, under the circumstances; and that left only Mrs. Carew. Mrs. Carew, however, was a host in herself, and Jimmy found his only comfort these days in her society. Gay or grave, she always seemed to know how to fit his mood exactly; and it was wonderful how much she knew about bridges—the kind of bridges he was going to build. She was so wise, too, and so sympathetic, knowing always just the right word to say. He even one day almost told her about The Packet; but John Pendleton interrupted them at just the wrong moment, so the story was not told. John Pendleton was always interrupting them at just the wrong moment, Jimmy thought vexedly, sometimes. Then, when he remembered what John Pendleton had done for him, he was ashamed.

"The Packet" was a thing that dated back to Jimmy's boyhood, and had never been mentioned to any one save to John Pendleton, and that only once, at the time of his adoption. The Packet was nothing but rather a large white envelope, worn with time, and plump with mystery behind a huge red seal. It had been given him by his father, and it bore the following instructions in his father's hand:

"To my boy, Jimmy. Not to be opened until his thirtieth birthday except in case of his death, when it shall be opened at once."

There were times when Jimmy speculated a good deal as to the contents of that envelope. There were other times when he forgot its existence. In the old days, at the Orphans' Home, his chief terror had been that it should be discovered and taken away from him. In those days he wore it always hidden in the lining of his coat. Of late years, at John Pendleton's suggestion, it had been tucked away in the Pendleton safe.

"For there's no knowing how valuable it may be," John Pendleton had said, with a smile. "And, anyway, your father evidently wanted you to have it, and we wouldn't want to run the risk of losing it."

"No, I wouldn't want to lose it, of course," Jimmy had smiled back, a little soberly. "But I'm not counting on its being real valuable, sir. Poor dad didn't have anything that was very valuable about him, as I remember."

It was this Packet that Jimmy came so near mentioning to Mrs. Carew one day,—if only John Pendleton had not interrupted them.

"Still, maybe it's just as well I didn't tell her about it," Jimmy reflected afterwards, on his way home. "She might have thought dad had something in his life that wasn't quite—right. And I wouldn't have wanted her to think that—of dad."


	15. The Game and Pollyanna

Before the middle of September the Carews and Sadie Dean said good-by and went back to London. Much as she knew she would miss them, Pollyanna drew an actual sigh of relief as the train bearing them away rolled out of the Beldingsville station. Pollyanna would not have admitted having this feeling of relief to any one else, and even to herself she apologized in her thoughts.

"It isn't that I don't love them dearly, every one of them," she sighed, watching the train disappear around the curve far down the track. "It's only that—that I'm so sorry for poor Jamie all the time; and—and—I am tired. I shall be glad, for a while, just to go back to the old quiet days with Jimmy."

Pollyanna, however, did not go back to the old quiet days with Jimmy. The days that immediately followed the going of the Carews were quiet, certainly, but they were not passed "with Jimmy." Jimmy rarely came near the house now, and when he did call, he was not the old Jimmy that she used to know. He was moody, restless, and silent, or else very gay and talkative in a nervous fashion that was most puzzling and annoying. Before long, too, he himself went to London; and then of course she did not see him at all.

Pollyanna was surprised then to see how much she missed him. Even to know that he was in town, and that there was a chance that he might come over, was better than the dreary emptiness of certain absence; and even his puzzling moods of alternating gloominess and gayety were preferable to this utter silence of nothingness. Then, one day, suddenly she pulled herself up with hot cheeks and shamed eyes.

"Well, Pollyanna Whittier," she upbraided herself sharply, "one would think you were in LOVE with Jimmy Bean Pendleton! Can't you think of ANYTHING but him?"

Whereupon, forthwith, she bestirred herself to be very gay and lively indeed, and to put this Jimmy Bean Pendleton out of her thoughts. As it happened, Aunt Polly, though unwittingly, helped her to this.

With the going of the Carews had gone also their chief source of immediate income, and Aunt Polly was beginning to worry again, audibly, about the state of their finances. They had written to the clinic but had still no further word of Dr Chilton and both Pollyanna and her Aunt were almost frantic with worry about him. 

"I don't know, really, Pollyanna, what IS going to become of us," she would worry frequently. "Of course we are a little ahead now from this summer's work, and we have a small sum from your Uncle still coming in; but I never know how soon that's going to stop, like all the rest. If only we could do something to bring in some ready cash!"

It was after one of these lamentations one day that Pollyanna's eyes chanced to fall on a prize-story contest offer. It was a most alluring one. The prizes were large and numerous. The conditions were set forth in glowing terms. To read it, one would think that to win out were the easiest thing in the world. It contained even a special appeal that might have been framed for Pollyanna herself.

"This is for you—you who read this," it ran. "What if you never have written a story before! That is no sign you cannot write one. Try it. That's all. Wouldn't YOU like three thousand dollars? Two thousand? One thousand? Five hundred, or even one hundred? Then why not go after it?"

"The very thing!" cried Pollyanna, clapping her hands. "I'm so glad I saw it! And it says I can do it, too. I thought I could, if I'd just try. I'll go tell auntie, so she needn't worry any more."

Pollyanna was on her feet and half way to the door when a second thought brought her steps to a pause.

"Come to think of it, I reckon I won't, after all. It'll be all the nicer to surprise her; and if I SHOULD get the first one—!"

Pollyanna went to sleep that night planning what she COULD do with that three thousand dollars.

Pollyanna began her story the next day. That is, she, with a very important air, got out a quantity of paper, sharpened up half-a-dozen pencils, and established herself at the big old-fashioned Harrington desk in the living-room. After biting restlessly at the ends of two of her pencils, she wrote down three words on the fair white page before her. Then she drew a long sigh, threw aside the second ruined pencil, and picked up a slender green one with a beautiful point. This point she eyed with a meditative frown.

"O dear! I wonder WHERE they get their titles," she despaired. "Maybe, though, I ought to decide on the story first, and then make a title to fit. Anyhow, I'M going to do it." And forthwith she drew a black line through the three words and poised the pencil for a fresh start.

The start was not made at once, however. Even when it was made, it must have been a false one, for at the end of half an hour the whole page was nothing but a jumble of scratched-out lines, with only a few words here and there left to tell the tale.

At this juncture Aunt Polly came into the room. She turned tired eyes upon her niece.

"Well, Pollyanna, what ARE you up to now?" she asked.

Pollyanna laughed and colored guiltily.

"Nothing much, Aunt Polly. Anyhow, it doesn't look as if it were much—yet," she admitted, with a rueful smile. "Besides, it's a secret, and I'm not going to tell it yet."

"Very well; suit yourself," sighed Aunt Polly. "But I can tell you right now that if you're trying to make anything different out of those mortgage papers Mr. Hart left, it's useless. I've been all over them myself twice."

"No, Auntie, it isn't the papers. It's a whole heap nicer than any papers ever could be," crowed Pollyanna triumphantly, turning back to her work. In Pollyanna's eyes suddenly had risen a glowing vision of what it might be, with that three thousand dollars once hers.

For still another half-hour Pollyanna wrote and scratched, and chewed her pencils; then, with her courage dulled, but not destroyed, she gathered up her papers and pencils and left the room.

"I reckon maybe I'll do better by myself up-stairs," she was thinking as she hurried through the hall. "I THOUGHT I ought to do it at a desk—being literary work, so—but anyhow, the desk didn't help me any this morning. I'll try the window seat in my room."

The window seat, however, proved to be no more inspiring, judging by the scratched and re-scratched pages that fell from Pollyanna's hands; and at the end of another half-hour Pollyanna discovered suddenly that it was time to get dinner.

"Well, I'm glad 'tis, anyhow," she sighed to herself. "I'd a lot rather get dinner than do this. Not but that I WANT to do this, of course; only I'd no idea 'twas such an awful job—just a story, so!"

During the following month Pollyanna worked faithfully, doggedly, but she soon found that "just a story, so" was indeed no small matter to accomplish. Pollyanna, however, was not one to set her hand to the plow and look back. Besides, there was that three-thousand-dollar prize, or even any of the others, if she should not happen to win the first one! Of course even one hundred dollars was something! So day after day she wrote and erased, and rewrote, until finally the story, such as it was, lay completed before her. Then, with some misgivings, it must be confessed, she took the manuscript to Milly Snow to be typewritten.

"It reads all right—that is, it makes sense," mused Pollyanna doubtfully, as she hurried along toward the Snow cottage; "and it's a real nice story about a perfectly lovely girl. But there's something somewhere that isn't quite right about it, I'm afraid. Anyhow, I don't believe I'd better count too much on the first prize; then I won't be too much disappointed when I get one of the littler ones."

Pollyanna always thought of Jimmy when she went to the Snows', for it was at the side of the road near their cottage that she had first seen him as a forlorn little runaway lad from the Orphans' Home years before. She thought of him again to-day, with a little catch of her breath. Then, with the proud lifting of her head that always came now with the second thought of Jimmy, she hurried up the Snows' doorsteps and rang the bell.

As was usually the case, the Snows had nothing but the warmest of welcomes for Pollyanna; and also as usual it was not long before they were talking of the game: in no home in Beldingsville was the glad game more ardently played than in the Snows'.

"Well, and how are you getting along?" asked Pollyanna, when she had finished the business part of her call.

"Splendidly!" beamed Milly Snow. "This is the third job I've got this week. Oh, Miss Pollyanna, I'm so glad you had me take up typewriting, for you see I CAN do that right at home! And it's all owing to you."

"Nonsense!" disclaimed Pollyanna, merrily.

"But it is. In the first place, I couldn't have done it anyway if it hadn't been for the game—making mother so much better, you know, that I had some time to myself. And then, at the very first, you suggested typewriting, and helped me to buy a machine. I should like to know if that doesn't come pretty near owing it all to you!"

But once again Pollyanna objected. This time she was interrupted by Mrs. Snow from her wheel chair by the window. And so earnestly and gravely did Mrs. Snow speak, that Pollyanna, in spite of herself, could but hear what she had to say.

"Listen, child, I don't think you know quite what you've done. But I wish you could! There's a little look in your eyes, my dear, to-day, that I don't like to see there. You are plagued and worried over something, I know. I can see it. And I don't wonder: your uncle's illness, your Aunt, everything—I won't say more about that. But there's something I do want to say, my dear, and you must let me say it, for I can't bear to see that shadow in your eyes without trying to drive it away by telling you what you've done for me, for this whole town, and for countless other people everywhere."

"MRS. SNOW!" protested Pollyanna, in genuine distress.

"Oh, I mean it, and I know what I'm talking about," nodded the invalid, triumphantly. "To begin with, look at me. Didn't you find me a fretful, whining creature who never by any chance wanted what she had until she found what she didn't have? And didn't you open my eyes by bringing me three kinds of things so I'd HAVE to have what I wanted, for once?"

"Oh, Mrs. Snow, was I really ever quite so—impertinent as that?" murmured Pollyanna, with a painful blush.

"It wasn't impertinent," objected Mrs. Snow, stoutly. "You didn't MEAN it as impertinence—and that made all the difference in the world. You didn't preach, either, my dear. If you had, you'd never have got me to playing the game, nor anybody else, I fancy. But you did get me to playing it—and see what it's done for me, and for Milly! Here I am so much better that I can sit in a wheel chair and go anywhere on this floor in it. That means a whole lot when it comes to waiting on yourself, and giving those around you a chance to breathe—meaning Milly, in this case. And the doctor says it's all owing to the game. Then there's others, quantities of others, right in this town, that I'm hearing of all the time. Nellie Mahoney broke her wrist and was so glad it wasn't her leg that she didn't mind the wrist at all. Old Mrs. Tibbits has lost her hearing, but she's so glad 'tisn't her eyesight that she's actually happy. Do you remember cross-eyed Joe that they used to call Cross Joe, be cause of his temper? Nothing went to suit him either, any more than it did me. Well, somebody's taught him the game, they say, and made a different man of him. And listen, dear. It's not only this town, but other places. I had a letter yesterday from my cousin in Massachusetts, and she told me all about Mrs. Tom Payson that used to live here. Do you remember them? They lived on the way up Pendleton Hill."

"Yes, oh, yes, I remember them," cried Pollyanna.

"Well, they left here that winter you were in the Sanatorium and went to Massachusetts where my sister lives. She knows them well. She says Mrs. Payson told her all about you, and how your glad game actually saved them from a divorce. And now not only do they play it themselves, but they've got quite a lot of others playing it down there, and THEY'RE getting still others. So you see, dear, there's no telling where that glad game of yours is going to stop. I wanted you to know. I thought it might help—even you to play the game sometimes; for don't think I don't understand, dearie, that it IS hard for you to play your own game—sometimes."

Pollyanna rose to her feet. She smiled, but her eyes glistened with tears, as she held out her hand in good-by.

"Thank you, Mrs. Snow," she said unsteadily. "It IS hard—sometimes; and maybe I DID need a little help about my own game. But, anyhow, now—" her eyes flashed with their old merriment—"if any time I think I can't play the game myself I can remember that I can still always be GLAD there are some folks playing it!"

Pollyanna walked home a little soberly that afternoon. Touched as she was by what Mrs. Snow had said, there was yet an undercurrent of sadness in it all. She was thinking of Aunt Polly—Aunt Polly who played the game now so seldom; and she was wondering if she herself always played it, when she might.

"Maybe I haven't been careful, always, to hunt up the glad side of the things Aunt Polly says," she thought with undefined guiltiness; "and maybe if I played the game better myself, Aunt Polly would play it—a little. Anyhow I'm going to try. If I don't look out, all these other people will be playing my own game better than I am myself!"


	16. Chapter 16

It was just a week before Christmas that Pollyanna sent her story (now neatly typewritten) in for the contest. The prize-winners would not be announced until April, the magazine notice said, so Pollyanna settled herself for the long wait with characteristic, philosophical patience.

"I don't know, anyhow, but I'm glad 'tis so long," she told herself, "for all winter I can have the fun of thinking it may be the first one instead of one of the others, that I'll get. I might just as well think I'm going to get it, then if I do get it, I won't have been unhappy any. While if I don't get it—I won't have had all these weeks of unhappiness beforehand, anyway; and I can be glad for one of the smaller ones, then." That she might not get any prize was not in Pollyanna's calculations at all. The story, so beautifully typed by Milly Snow, looked almost as good as printed already—to Pollyanna.

Christmas was not a happy time at the Chilton's homestead that year, in spite of Pollyanna's strenuous efforts to make it so. Aunt Polly felt her husband's absense most keenly, and although she allowed Pollyanna to put up a tree, she participated most listlessly in any celebrations. It was breaking Pollyanna's heart seeing her like this; she no longer had the distraction of helping look after and entertain their guests and her worry and distress were plain to see. 

Aunt Polly, sitting on a chair in the living room Christmas evening, tried her best to avoid thinking of their past Christmases - when Dr Chilton had been there with them. It was impossible though, as reminders of her husband were everywhere. She had refused to allow their wedding photo to be removed from the small table beside the chair. She saw it as a last vestiage of hope, in a way, although she was rapidly losing that. She thought of their first Christmas as husband and wife, when Pollyanna was still only twelve, and their last Christmas in Germany. It had been a cold, snowy day, but cosy inside. Dr Chilton had woken her with a kiss and his bright smile and gifted her a beautiful shawl that she had seen in the shops. She had given him an antique medical book that he had spoken about for what seemed like forever, and Aunt Polly had finally located a copy. They had walked through the village arm in arm, Pollyanna running ahead in her new red coat. Their evening was spent in front of the fire, alone together, while Pollyanna visited their neighbours. Aunt Polly, leaning contentedly against her husband, their fingers entwined, remembered telling him that she loved him and how he had put down his book, gazed at her and taken her face into his hands for a passionate kiss in reply. The ache in her heart suddenly seemed to become worse and she listlessly picked one of Pollyanna's magaines and started to flip though it, though seeing nothing. 

Christmas evening John Pendleton called. Mrs. Chilton excused herself, still lost in her thoughts, but Pollyanna, utterly worn out from a long day, welcomed him joyously. But even here she found a fly in the amber of her content; for John Pendleton had brought with him a letter from Jimmy, and the letter was full of nothing but the plans he and Mrs. Carew were making for a wonderful Christmas celebration at the Home for Working Girls: and Pollyanna, ashamed though she was to own it to herself, was not in a mood to hear about Christmas celebrations just then—least of all, Jimmy's.

John Pendleton, however, was not ready to let the subject drop, even when the letter had been read.

"Great doings—those!" he exclaimed, as he folded the letter.

"Yes, indeed; fine!" murmured Pollyanna, trying to speak with due enthusiasm.

"And it's to-night, too, isn't it? I'd like to drop in on them about now."

"Yes," murmured Pollyanna again, with still more careful enthusiasm.

"Mrs. Carew knew what she was about when she got Jimmy to help her, I fancy," chuckled the man. "But I'm wondering how Jimmy likes it—playing Santa Claus to half a hundred young women at once!"

"Why, he finds it delightful, of course!" Pollyanna lifted her chin ever so slightly.

"Maybe. Still, it's a little different from learning to build bridges, you must confess."

"Oh, yes."

"But I'll risk Jimmy, and I'll risk wagering that those girls never had a better time than he'll give them to-night, too."

"Y-yes, of course," stammered Pollyanna, trying to keep the hated tremulousness out of her voice, and trying very hard NOT to compare her own dreary evening in Beldingsville with nobody but John Pendleton to that of those fifty girls in London—with Jimmy.

There was a brief pause, during which John Pendleton gazed dreamily at the dancing fire on the hearth.

"She's a wonderful woman—Mrs. Carew is," he said at last.

"She is, indeed!" This time the enthusiasm in Pollyanna's voice was all pure gold.

"Jimmy's written me before something of what she's done for those girls," went on the man, still gazing into the fire. "In just the last letter before this he wrote a lot about it, and about her. He said he always admired her, but never so much as now, when he can see what she really is."

"She's a dear—that's what Mrs. Carew is," declared Pollyanna, warmly.

"She's a dear in every way, and I love her."

John Pendleton stirred suddenly. He turned to Pollyanna with an oddly whimsical look in his eyes.

"I know you do, my dear. For that matter, there may be others, too—that love her."

Pollyanna's heart skipped a beat. A sudden thought came to her with stunning, blinding force. JIMMY! Could John Pendleton be meaning that Jimmy cared THAT WAY—for Mrs. Carew?

"You mean—?" she faltered. She could not finish.

With a nervous twitch peculiar to him, John Pendleton got to his feet.

"I mean—the girls, of course," he answered lightly, still with that whimsical smile. "Don't you suppose those fifty girls—love her 'most to death?"

Pollyanna said "yes, of course," and murmured something else appropriate, in answer to John Pendleton's next remark. But her thoughts were in a tumult, and she let the man do most of the talking for the rest of the evening.

Nor did John Pendleton seem averse to this. Restlessly he took a turn or two about the room, then sat down in his old place. And when he spoke, it was on his old subject, Mrs. Carew.

"Queer—about that Jamie of hers, isn't it? I wonder if he IS her nephew."

As Pollyanna did not answer, the man went on, after a moment's silence.

"He's a fine fellow, anyway. I like him. There's something fine and genuine about him. She's bound up in him. That's plain to be seen, whether he's really her kin or not."

There was—another pause, then, in a slightly altered voice, John Pendleton said: "Still it's queer, too, when you come to think of it, that she never—married again. She is certainly now—a very beautiful woman. Don't you think so?"

"Yes—yes, indeed she is," plunged in Pollyanna, with precipitate haste; "a—a very beautiful woman."

There was a little break at the last in Pollyanna's voice. Pollyanna, just then, had caught sight of her own face in the mirror opposite—and Pollyanna to herself was never "a very beautiful woman."

On and on rambled John Pendleton, musingly, contentedly, his eyes on the fire. Whether he was answered or not seemed not to disturb him. Whether he was even listened to or not, he seemed hardly to know. He wanted, apparently, only to talk; but at last he got to his feet reluctantly and said good-night.

For a weary half-hour Pollyanna had been longing for him to go, that she might be alone; but after he had gone she wished he were back. She had found suddenly that she did not want to be alone—with her thoughts.

It was wonderfully clear to Pollyanna now. There was no doubt of it. Jimmy cared for Mrs. Carew. That was why he was so moody and restless after she left. That was why he had come so seldom to see her, Pollyanna, his old friend. That was why—Countless little circumstances of the past summer flocked to Pollyanna's memory now, mute witnesses that would not be denied. And why should he not care for her? Mrs. Carew was certainly beautiful and charming. True, she was older than Jimmy; but young men had married women far older than she, many times. And if they loved each other—

As if things weren't bad enough with her Uncle so ill.

Pollyanna cried herself to sleep that night.

In the morning, bravely she tried to face the thing. She even tried, with a tearful smile, to put it to the test of the glad game. She was reminded then of something Nancy had said to her years before: "If there IS a set o' folks in the world that wouldn't have no use for that 'ere glad game o' your'n, it'd be a pair o' quarrellin' lovers!"

"Not that we're 'quarrelling,' or even 'lovers,'" thought Pollyanna blushingly; "but just the same I can be glad HE'S glad, and glad SHE'S glad, too, only—" Even to herself Pollyanna could not finish this sentence.

Being so sure now that Jimmy and Mrs. Carew cared for each other, Pollyanna became peculiarly sensitive to everything that tended to strengthen that belief. And being ever on the watch for it, she found it, as was to be expected. First in Mrs. Carew's letters.

"I am seeing a lot of your friend, young Pendleton," Mrs. Carew wrote one day; "and I'm liking him more and more. I do wish, however—just for curiosity's sake—that I could trace to its source that elusive feeling that I've seen him before somewhere."

Frequently, after this, she mentioned him casually; and, to Pollyanna, in the very casualness of these references lay their sharpest sting; for it showed so unmistakably that Jimmy and Jimmy's presence were now to Mrs. Carew a matter of course. From other sources, too, Pollyanna found fuel for the fire of her suspicions. More and more frequently John Pendleton "dropped in" with his stories of Jimmy, and of what Jimmy was doing; and always here there was mention of Mrs. Carew. Poor Pollyanna wondered, indeed, sometimes, if John Pendleton could not talk of anything—but Mrs. Carew and Jimmy, so constantly was one or the other of those names on his lips.

There were Sadie Dean's letters, too, and they told of Jimmy, and of what he was doing to help Mrs. Carew. Even Jamie, who wrote occasionally, had his mite to add, for he wrote one evening:

"It's ten o'clock. I'm sitting here alone waiting for Mrs. Carew to come home. She and Pendleton have been to one of their usual socials down to the Home."

From Jimmy himself Pollyanna heard very rarely; and for that she told herself mournfully that she COULD be GLAD.

"For if he can't write about ANYTHING but Mrs. Carew and those girls, I'm glad he doesn't write very often!" she sighed.


	17. Jimmy and Jamie

Pollyanna was not the only one that was finding that winter a hard one. In London Jimmy Pendleton, in spite of his strenuous efforts to occupy his time and thoughts, was discovering that nothing quite erased from his vision a certain pair of laughing blue eyes, and nothing quite obliterated from his memory a certain well-loved, merry voice.

Jimmy told himself that if it were not for Mrs. Carew, and the fact that he could be of some use to her, life would not be worth the living. Even at Mrs. Carew's it was not all joy, for always there was Jamie; and Jamie brought thoughts of Pollyanna—unhappy thoughts.

Being thoroughly convinced that Jamie and Pollyanna cared for each other, and also being equally convinced that he himself was in honor bound to step one side and give the handicapped Jamie full right of way, it never occurred to him to question further. Of Pollyanna he did not like to talk or to hear. He knew that both Jamie and Mrs. Carew heard from her; and when they spoke of her, he forced himself to listen, in spite of his heartache. But he always changed the subject as soon as possible, and he limited his own letters to her to the briefest and most infrequent epistles possible. For, to Jimmy, a Pollyanna that was not his was nothing but a source of pain and wretchedness; and he had been so glad when the time came for him to leave Beldingsville and take up his studies again in London: to be so near Pollyanna, and yet so far from her, he had found to be nothing but torture.

In London, with all the feverishness of a restless mind that seeks distraction from itself, he had thrown himself into the carrying out of Mrs. Carew's plans for her beloved working girls, and such time as could be spared from his own duties he had devoted to this work, much to Mrs. Carew's delight and gratitude.

And so for Jimmy the winter had passed and spring had come—a joyous, blossoming spring full of soft breezes, gentle showers, and tender green buds expanding into riotous bloom and fragrance. To Jimmy, however, it was anything but a joyous spring, for in his heart was still nothing but a gloomy winter of discontent.

"If only they'd settle things and announce the engagement, once for all," murmured Jimmy to himself, more and more frequently these days. "If only I could know SOMETHING for sure, I think I could stand it better!"

Then one day late in April, he had his wish—a part of it: he learned "something for sure."

It was ten o'clock on a Saturday morning, and Mary, at Mrs. Carew's, had ushered him into the music-room with a well-trained: "I'll tell Mrs. Carew you're here, sir. She's expecting you, I think."

In the music-room Jimmy had found himself brought to a dismayed halt by the sight of Jamie at the piano, his arms outflung upon the rack, and his head bowed upon them. Pendleton had half turned to beat a soft retreat when the man at the piano lifted his head, bringing into view two flushed cheeks and a pair of fever-bright eyes.

"Why, Carew," stammered Pendleton, aghast, "has anything—er—happened?"

"Happened! Happened!" ejaculated the lame youth, flinging out both his hands, in each of which, as Pendleton now saw, was an open letter. "Everything has happened! Wouldn't you think it had if all your life you'd been in prison, and suddenly you saw the gates flung wide open? Wouldn't you think it had if all in a minute you could ask the girl you loved to be your wife? Wouldn't you think it had if—But, listen! You think I'm crazy, but I'm not. Though maybe I am, after all, crazy with joy. I'd like to tell you. May I? I've got to tell somebody!"

Pendleton lifted his head. It was as if, unconsciously, he was bracing himself for a blow. He had grown a little white; but his voice was quite steady when he answered.

"Sure you may, old fellow. I'd be—glad to hear it."

Carew, however, had scarcely waited for assent. He was rushing on, still a bit incoherently.

"It's not much to you, of course. You have two feet and your freedom. You have your ambitions and your bridges. But I—to me it's everything. It's a chance to live a man's life and do a man's work, perhaps—even if it isn't dams and bridges. It's something!—and it's something I've proved now I CAN DO! Listen. In that letter there is the announcement that a little story of mine has won the first prize—$3,000, in a contest. In that other letter there, a big publishing house accepts with flattering enthusiasm my first book manuscript for publication. And they both came to-day—this morning. Do you wonder I am crazy glad?"

"No! No, indeed! I congratulate you, Carew, with all my heart," cried  
Jimmy, warmly.  
"Thank you—and you may congratulate me. Think what it means to me. Think what it means if, by and by, I can be independent, like a man. Think what it means if I can, some day, make Mrs. Carew proud and glad that she gave the crippled lad a place in her home and heart. Think what it means for me to be able to tell the girl I love that I DO love her."

"Yes—yes, indeed, old boy!" Jimmy spoke firmly, though he had grown very white now.

"Of course, maybe I ought not to do that last, even now," resumed Jamie, a swift cloud shadowing the shining brightness of his countenance. "I'm still tied to—these." He tapped the crutches by his side. "I can't forget, of course, that day in the woods last summer, when I saw Pollyanna—I realize that always I'll have to run the chance of seeing the girl I love in danger, and not being able to rescue her."

"Oh, but Carew—" began the other huskily.

Carew lifted a peremptory hand.

"I know what you'd say. But don't say it. You can't understand. YOU aren't tied to two sticks. You did the rescuing, not I. It came to me then how it would be, always, with me and—Sadie. I'd have to stand aside and see others—"

"SADIE!" cut in Jimmy, sharply.

"Yes; Sadie Dean. You act surprised. Didn't you know? Haven't you suspected—how I felt toward Sadie?" cried Jamie. "Have I kept it so well to myself, then? I tried to, but—" He finished with a faint smile and a half-despairing gesture.

"Well, you certainly kept it all right, old fellow—from me, anyhow," cried Jimmy, gayly. The color had come back to Jimmy's face in a rich flood, and his eyes had grown suddenly very bright indeed. "So it's Sadie Dean. Good! I congratulate you again, I do, I do, as Nancy says." Jimmy was quite babbling with joy and excitement now, so great and wonderful had been the reaction within him at the discovery that it was Sadie, not Pollyanna, whom Jamie loved. Jamie flushed and shook his head a bit sadly.

"No congratulations—yet. You see, I haven't spoken to—her. But I think she must know. I supposed everybody knew. Pray, whom did you think it was, if not—Sadie?"

Jimmy hesitated. Then, a little precipitately, he let it out.

"Why, I'd thought of—Pollyanna."

Jamie smiled and pursed his lips.

"Pollyanna's a charming girl, and I love her—but not that way, any more than she does me. Besides, I fancy somebody else would have something to say about that; eh?"

Jimmy colored like a happy, conscious boy.

"Do you?" he challenged, trying to make his voice properly impersonal.

"Of course! John Pendleton."

"JOHN PENDLETON!" Jimmy wheeled sharply.

"What about John Pendleton?" queried a new voice; and Mrs. Carew came forward with a smile.

Jimmy, around whose ears for the second time within five minutes the world had crashed into fragments, barely collected himself enough for a low word of greeting. But Jamie, unabashed, turned with a triumphant air of assurance.

"Nothing; only I just said that I believed John Pendleton would have something to say about Pollyanna's loving anybody—but him."

"POLLYANNA! JOHN PENDLETON!" Mrs. Carew sat down suddenly in the chair nearest her. If the two men before her had not been so deeply absorbed in their own affairs they might have noticed that the smile had vanished from Mrs. Carew's lips, and that an odd look as of almost fear had come to her eyes.

"Certainly," maintained Jamie. "Were you both blind last summer?  
Wasn't he with her a lot?"  
"Why, I thought he was with—all of us," murmured Mrs. Carew, a little faintly.

"Not as he was with Pollyanna," insisted Jamie. "Besides, have you forgotten that day when we were talking about John Pendleton's marrying, and Pollyanna blushed and stammered and said finally that he HAD thought of marrying—once. Well, I wondered then if there wasn't SOMETHING between them. Don't you remember?"

"Y-yes, I think I do—now that you speak of it," murmured Mrs. Carew again. "But I had—forgotten it."

"Oh, but I can explain that," cut in Jimmy, wetting his dry lips.  
"John Pendleton DID have a love affair once, but it was with  
Pollyanna's mother."  
"Pollyanna's mother!" exclaimed two voices in surprise.

"Yes. He loved her years ago, but she did not care for him at all, I understand. She had another lover—a minister, and she married him instead—Pollyanna's father."

"Oh-h!" breathed Mrs. Carew, leaning forward suddenly in her chair.  
"And is that why he's—never married?"  
"Yes," avouched Jimmy. "So you see there's really nothing to that idea at all—that he cares for Pollyanna. It was her mother."

"On the contrary I think it makes a whole lot to that idea," declared Jamie, wagging his head wisely. "I think it makes my case all the stronger. Listen. He once loved the mother. He couldn't have her. What more absolutely natural than that he should love the daughter now—and win her?"

"Oh, Jamie, you incorrigible spinner of tales!" reproached Mrs. Carew, with a nervous laugh. "This is no ten-penny novel. It's real life. She's too young for him. He ought to marry a woman, not a girl—that is, if he marries any one, I mean," she stammeringly corrected, a sudden flood of color in her face.

"Perhaps; but what if it happens to be a GIRL that he loves?" argued Jamie, stubbornly. "And, really, just stop to think. Have we had a single letter from her that hasn't told of his being there? And you KNOW how HE'S always talking of Pollyanna in his letters." Mrs. Carew got suddenly to her feet.

"Yes, I know," she murmured, with an odd little gesture, as if throwing something distasteful aside. "But—" She did not finish her sentence, and a moment later she had left the room.

When she came back in five minutes she found, much to her surprise, that Jimmy had gone.

"Why, I thought he was going with us on the girls' picnic!" she exclaimed.

"So did I," frowned Jamie. "But the first thing I knew he was explaining or apologizing or something about unexpectedly having to leave town, and he'd come to tell you he couldn't go with us. Anyhow, the next thing I knew he'd gone. You see,"—Jamie's eyes were glowing again—"I don't think I knew quite what he did say, anyway. I had something else to think of." And he jubilantly spread before her the two letters which all the time he had still kept in his hands.

"Oh, Jamie!" breathed Mrs. Carew, when she had read the letters through. "How proud I am of you!" Then suddenly her eyes filled with tears at the look of ineffable joy that illumined Jamie's face.


	18. Happiness Again

With all the confusion the past weeks about Mr Pendelton, Mrs Carew, Jamie and Sadie, and her happiness about Jimmy, Pollyanna was glad to get a chance to finally sit down. 

Her Aunt had been trying to play the game more lately, however listlessly, and while Pollyanna could see that she was still barely sleeping she was at least getting through the days more effectively than she had been. She had not been the same since her husband was taken ill, appearing to have resigned herself to never seeing him again. 

A letter had come in the morning mail, and it wasn't until evening that Pollyanna had a chance to go through it. It was from the clinic. When she had finished reading it, tears were streaming down her face. She rushed up to her Aunt's bedroom, where Aunt Polly was sitting up in bed, still in her dressing gown, her chin on her knees. When Pollyanna rushed in and she saw her flushed face and her tears, and heard her breathless "we have a letter!" she drew in her breath and buried her face in her hands.

"Oh no....no no no no no..." she panicked, her face turning ghostly and her heart suddenly racing. "I don't think I can bear it."

But Pollyanna had rushed over to her and grabbed her round her waist. "No Auntie!" she cried, "it's good news! Uncle Richard is better - he's coming home!" She could hardly get the words out for joy. "He's coming home!"

Her Aunt's body froze. She hardly dared hope. "Show me," she whispered, her shaking hand taking the letter from Pollyanna. 

After she read it she was still sitting stiffly, and hadn't moved, until everything started to register and a smile started to spread over her face and she burst into tears, her body rocked with sobs of relief. Pollyanna, upon seeing her usually publically emotionally netural Aunt's tears, her own began to flow again. "Oh Aunt Polly," she wept, "I'm so glad, GLAD!" 

At the use of her childhood phrase, Aunt Polly started to laugh through her tears, and she squeezed Pollyanna's shoulder. It was music to Pollyanna's ears. She hadn't heard that sound in almost a year.

"We must meet him...in London...," her Aunt managed to stammer through her tears.

Her hands still shaking, Pollyanna immediately took up a pen. "We'll make arrangements immediately. Perhaps Mrs Carew's house." Pollyanna was scribbling frantically. Her Aunt was in no state to do any writing. 

Pollyanna very soon had rushed and excited letters ready for Mrs Carew, Jimmy, Mr Pendelton, who were all already there. 

She would post them first thing in the morning. Meanwhile she and Aunt Polly had their first peaceful sleep in months. 

\----------------------------

Just a week later, Pollyanna and Jimmy had announced their engagement at Mrs Carews house, where Mrs Carew, Mr Pendelton, Jimmy, Jamie and Sadie were all staying. She had told Aunt Polly that they would be meeting her Uncle later that afternoon at the port. Her Aunt had been restless all week, and especially so today. However, Dr Chilton had arrived that morning and already seen the others, including his niece, who tearfully threw herself at him as soon as she saw him. 

On the boat journey after leaving the clinic, Dr Chilton had thought of almost nothing but his wife. He was desperate to see her again after being away so many months. He wanted nothing more than to be able to hold her, kiss her and be with her again. He thought how happy he had been: he had a wife who he loved and who adored him, a lovely niece. He thought of their wedding, remembered Aunt Polly walking toward him smiling so happily, how happy he was that they were married at last. He remembered their kisses, the taste and touch of her lips, the warmth in her eyes when she looked at him and the tenderness in her touches, showing him each and every day how much she loved him. Being away from his wife had devestated Dr Chilton - he wasn't able to be there for her, to provide for and protect her when she needed him. He knew about the decrease in their finances and had spent many a sleepless night worrying about her and Pollyanna, despite Pollyanna reassuring him. 

Everyone was gathered around enjoying food and drink in Mrs Carew's sitting room, waiting expectantly (as they were informed of Pollyanna's plan), except Aunt Polly, who was walking up and down in impatience, when Pollyanna, smilingly, standing next to Jimmy said: "AND...one more thing...."

Dr Chilton’s smile lit up his entire face as he walked through the door and his eyes glistened with tears of joy when he saw his wife. He was still the same tall, twinkly-eyed doctor that everyone in town had loved so well - still handsome and broad-shouldered and most importantly – better and home.

The usually reserved Aunt Polly’s face had turned pale, and then pink, as she saw her husband and he almost fell into her arms and wrapped his arms around her as hot tears fell down his already moist cheeks onto her hair. She was holding him to her, her face against his cheek, the wetness of her tears mixing with his. She knew Pollyanna must have organised for him to meet her here instead of the port. They had missed each other so desperately during the long months of Dr Chilton’s illness and never wanted to let each other go. 

The whole town had been witness to Mrs Chilton’s devastation at her husband’s illness and the possibility of his death. But none of that mattered now. As Aunt Polly looked up with shining eyes at her husband’s face, the face she had missed so much and was certain she would never see again, he took her face in his hands and kissed her, pressing his lips to hers with the desperation and passion of a man who has been too long away from the wife he adores, not caring who was in the room with them. Aunt Polly, probably for the first time in her life, didn’t care how many people were there, kissed him back, her arms still wrapped around him, tasting the salt of their tears on his lips. She wanted nothing more than to stay in her husband’s arms.

Dr Chilton was too overcome with emotion to speak. He could only hold his wife tighter and keep his lips against hers. She finally managed to choke “I thought I would never see you again, I –,” but her husband, still unable to speak for emotion, only kissed her again, gently on her forehead and cheeks and beside her lips before his mouth crushed down on hers again, tears still running down his cheeks. “I love you,” he finally managed to whisper, between soft, warm kisses, gently brushing the tears from her cheeks. “I missed you so very much.” “And I love you,” Aunt Polly whispered, her lips meeting his again, as they held each other. 

Pollyanna, watching her aunt and uncle turned to Jimmy. “I don’t think Aunt Polly would care who I married right now,” she smiled, recalling her Aunt's initial irritible opposition to her engagement. 

“You’re right there!” he gasped, wide-eyed with amazement.

Their tears at last began to dry and Aunt Polly and Dr Chilton smiled at each other, as she held him and he caressed her hair and cheek. Mrs Carew, Della, Pollyanna, Mr Pendelton and Jimmy all noticed the change in them both. The lustre and light had come back to Aunt Polly’s eyes, the fretful lines were gone from her forehead and the rosy flush had returned to her cheeks. The unhappy droop of her lips had become a smile. Dr Chilton’s back was straighter, his eyes were sparkling and he was smiling his bright smile, as they stood hand in hand with the others.

Aunt Polly and Dr Chilton were unable to take their eyes from each other during the remainder of the day. Later, when they thought they were alone, Pollyanna saw them gently pull each other into an embrace and their lips softly meet as they relaxed into the kiss in each other’s arms. 

"I think everyone is happy now," said Jimmy to Pollyanna, when Jimmy went to his own room that evening. "At last. Everything is as it should be."

"It is," sighed Pollyanna, with shining eyes of confidence. "It really is."

\-----------------------------

"...and in front of all those people too, Mrs Carew and Mr Pendelton..." Aunt Polly' voice trailed off as she smiled at her husband, her arms wrapped around him as they lay in bed that night, both wanting to be as close together as possible. She was so happy to be together again, to feel his firm body warm and solid against hers, her good-looking, loving and kind husband, whom she loved so much. She still couldn't quite believe that he was here again with her, in her arms. She gazed at his still handsome face, with its strong jaw and well-shaped mouth.

"And at our age," he teased, his clear grey-blue eyes twinkling.

"What they must have thought I don't know," she told him with a laugh. 

One of Dr Chilton's hands stroked her cheek, the other rested on the curve of her waist and he leaned over and kissed her full on her lips, his eyes closing and his mouth lingering on hers. He couldn't express how happy he was to have his wife in his arms again, her body warm and soft against his. He loved her so much and he couldn't take his eyes off her. They were going back to Beldingsville tomorrow, and would have many more nights to make love. Tonight, they were happy to just hold and kiss each other, after so many months apart.

"They thought how much you are besotted with me," he teased, "...and how much I am in love with you." He smiled. "Not such terrifying thoughts."

He took her face in his hands and kissed her again, warm and soft and slow. Her mouth and body melted to his at his kiss and his hands reverently caressed her body and her face. Aunt Polly never wanted to let him go, holding each other as closely as they could.

He told her, his voice full of emotion, how hard it had been knowing that she and Pollyanna were in hardship and he was unable to help. She knew how he had suffered, not just with his illness, but with worry and out of love for her, not being able to be there for her these last hard months. She held him tighter, her lips against his, her hands running through his wavy hair, flecked with grey, but still thick and brown. Aunt Polly knew the best thing she could do was tell him she loved him, more deeply than ever. 

"I couldn't bear being away from you," he told her, when they broke apart, his eyes meeting hers. "I never want to be apart from you again."

"Nor I," his wife smiled, holding him tighter. "Nor I."


End file.
